Amanda Clinton, a Ghanaian and UK-qualified lawyer has called on authorities to prioritise addressing ongoing electricity disruptions, saying repeated power outages are causing direct economic losses for small businesses and should take precedence over other policy debates.
Her comments come amid renewed public concern over intermittent electricity supply in parts of Ghana, with households and businesses reporting disruptions that have affected productivity, particularly in the informal sector.
The situation has revived public discussion around power stability, although authorities have attributed current challenges to maintenance works, infrastructure upgrades, and technical constraints within the national grid.
Clinton pointed to the impact on small-scale traders, especially those dependent on refrigeration, citing a fish trader whose frozen stock was destroyed after prolonged outages.
“The average woman who is selling fish in her freezer, and the light goes off for three days in Kumasi, cares more about how government is going to address that immediately,” she said.
She said such incidents illustrate the gap between policy discussions and lived realities, arguing that statistical explanations often fail to reflect real economic losses suffered by households and traders.
“The statistics are great, and it might be lost on a lot of the public. But the truth is, the average woman who is selling fish in her freezer… cares more about how government is going to address that immediately,” she said.
Clinton also criticised what she described as misplaced focus on external issues and political distractions, arguing that domestic infrastructure challenges require more urgent attention.
“Ghanaians… care more about you addressing our ECG problem, care about executive gatekeeping… improve it or change the legislature, but address it,” she said.
Government officials have maintained that the current electricity disruptions do not amount to a return of widespread “dumsor,” and have pointed to ongoing system upgrades, including transformer replacements and grid reinforcement projects aimed at improving long-term stability.
Despite this, recent outages have continued to draw criticism from businesses and households, particularly in sectors reliant on constant electricity supply such as food preservation, retail, and small-scale manufacturing.
Clinton said while attention to Ghanaian citizens abroad remains important, domestic challenges should not be overshadowed by external issues.
