At this point I can tell you Ghanaians are so jaded, we could be taken out of dumsor for the next five years, and we would still always feel a certain apprehension that its just around the corner.

That’s the sort of mental rewiring of our brains load shedding has left us with after the past few years. We are at the point where having  electricity lasting past forty eight hours arouses suspicion.

Dr Kwabena Donkor, after adamantly saying he would not resign by trying some impressive wordplay on Ghanaians, has made a huge u-turn. After arrogantly telling us he promised to end load shedding and not dumsor, this same man is now saying load shedding should be all but over by Christmas.

He was speaking during an as at yet unaired episode of TV3’s Hot Issues.

“Barring any unforeseen circumstance, from next week, consumers will begin to feel the easing of the load shedding and by Christmas, but again, subject to any unforeseen circumstances, load shedding should be at the barest minimum if it exist at all.

“It may not exist as at Christmas or as at the end of the month. But the caveat is that, for example if the SPO trips, we’ll have a challenge for the short period that we will have to bring it back”

Obviously some good news; except with a lot of conditionals and caveats. That is not what Ghanaians want to hear in the long term, but for now I guess we have to take half a loaf being better than none.

He added that any fault could derail the entire process, bringing pockets of it back again. But they are working at getting Ghana an energy surplus by next year.

“We’re bringing enough generation to break the deficit but early next year to mid next year, we will not have just break the deficit but we will also create what we call redundancy; that is enough reserve, so that should one plant go either for planed maintenance or unplanned, will kick in the reserve generating facilities”

He also noted that the famed power barges are undergoing mechanical testing.