Author: Dr. John Osae-Kwapong, Democracy and Development Fellow, CDD-Ghana, and Project Director, the Democracy Project

How citizens judge government performance is not very complicated. There are basic needs that the government in power is expected to address. When there is growing dissatisfaction with the way those needs are being addressed, citizens simply identify who is responsible and proceed to hold them accountable for it.

There may be good reasons why citizens’ needs are not being met. The reality, though, is that when solutions are being demanded, explanations generally do not sit well with citizens.

That essentially is at the heart of the recent citizen frustration and agitation over unreliable provision of electricity, which has become known in local parlance as “dumsor”.

The Current Crisis

I am not an energy sector policy expert. I therefore will not attempt to wade into the matter with my limited knowledge by trying to explain what it takes to provide citizens with regular, reliable electricity.

I will leave it to the experts to continue explaining not just the current situation, but the perennial nature of what truly ails our energy sector. I will, however, offer an observation from an ordinary citizen’s point of view.

I recall the vetting of former energy minister, Hon. Boakye Agyarko. It was one of the most insightful and engaging exchanges of the different vetting I watched in 2017. I walked away with two thoughts.

First, it was clear that the sector faces deep structural challenges. Second, dealing with the deep structural challenges requires very difficult policy choices. I was excited and looked forward to his tenure, but unfortunately, events turned out differently.

When I read the comments of frustrated citizens and the explanations from officialdom, I go back to reflect on Hon. Boakye Agyargo’s vetting and ask myself whether the difficult choices have been made over the years or if they ever will be made.

This is not to suggest that over the years, there have not been efforts to address the challenges of the energy sector. When all is said and done, and whatever has triggered the current crisis, we can all agree that the disruptions to our everyday life routines when the lights go off are unpleasant.

The Politics

Public policy is never immune to politics. If you are a voter, dissatisfaction with how the government is addressing your basic needs is a motivation to cast your vote against them in an impending election.

If 2026 were an election year, one can only imagine what the political atmosphere would look and feel like this past week. But voters have every right to hold policymakers accountable using the ballot box.

And citizens do not have to even wait for an election, as they are free to raise their voices to draw attention to public problems and demand solutions. When citizens begin to raise their voices, officialdom must respond in two ways.

First, it must explain the problem in ways that the ordinary citizen can appreciate. Second, it must demonstrate in very visible ways the efforts being made to address the problem. And that is what governments, including the current one, have regularly done when these electricity challenges emerge.

It still does not erase a difficulty I pointed out earlier – citizens in such moments, fairly or unfairly, only want the bottom line – their twenty-four-hour supply of electricity. Which is why references to the past actions and statements of a predecessor government, while may serve to prove a political point, do not sit well with ordinary citizens.

Then there is the opposition. No one discounts the role of opposition political parties in holding governments accountable. In fact, a vibrant opposition is critical to transparent and accountable governance.

At the same time, there is no denying that opposition parties also seize moments of crisis to score political points. It is the reality of politics for which there is not much that one can do.

Ultimately, it is up to every ruling government and opposition political party to choose its strategy in terms of how to respond in such moments, keeping in mind that ultimately, citizens have the last say.

Lastly, there are the words of the past that always come back to haunt political actors. It is an interesting cycle that repeats itself regularly. Why political actors never seem to learn from it so that circumspection always guides their rhetoric, amazes me. Maybe it is one of the mysteries of politics I will never understand.

A Special Note to The Government

Addressing the situation and doing so within the shortest possible time is important not only because it solves a critical need of citizens, but it also forestalls the negative consequences of any echoes of the past. This, in my view, must constantly weigh heavily on the mind of the current government as it works to resolve the current crisis.