Business leaders, electricity consumers, and unions in Ivory Coast are sounding the alarm about waves of blackouts that are hitting major cities, including the economic capital Abidjan and its five million residents.
The West African nation has boasted strong economic growth for the past eight years and has been a regional leader in energy production.
It exported 11 percent of its 2,200-megawatt production in 2019 to neighbouring Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Fasso, Mali and Liberia, according to official figures.
But the past week has seen frequent and severe outages that have upended lives and disrupted the economy — and more may come.
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The energy ministry blames low water levels at hydroelectric dams, a problem that some have attributed to climate change and lack of supplies for Ivory Coast’s two gas-fired power plants.
Breakdowns at Abidjan’s Azito plant, which generates more than a third of the country’s power, are also being blamed.
‘If it’s not the water supply that breaks down, it’s the electricity!‘ one resident of Ivory Coast’s capital Yamoussoukro yelled.
A civil servant living in Korhogo — the largest city in the north of the country — said the blackouts had been non-stop.
‘Not one day goes by that we don’t have a power cut, It puts our appliances at risk.’
Jean-Baptiste Koffi, president of the Ivory Coast Consumers’ Confederation (COC-CI) said the “unexpected and surprising interruptions” were destructive.
‘Electricity is failing more and more often, at work and in the homes,’ he said.
The crisis was clearly overwhelming the CIE, Ivory Coast’s monopoly electricity supplier, he said, demanding that the government intervene.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK