Kwabena Donkor: ‘I Resigned On Ill Health, Not Over Dumsor’

Member of Parliament for Pru East, Dr Kwabena Donkor, has revealed he resigned as Power Minister purely on health grounds and not because he failed to end the country’s power crisis. Dr Donkor had stated in his leaked resignation letter dated December 30, 2015 that his decision was borne out of the fact that although he practically ended load shedding, there were still outstanding issues. “My team has thus practically brought an end to the load shedding that has disrupted the lives of the citizens of our country. But we need to complete a few details in the next few weeks to bring a final end to load shedding…This means that technically I have not met my promise to end load shedding by the end of 2015,” he stated in the leaked letter. It was against this backdrop that the MP resigned his ministerial portfolio, which he held for a year beginning from the creation of the Power Ministry in November 2014.

 But in what appears to be a U-turn by the MP, he told TV Thursday in Accra that he resigned due to “ill health”. “Getting to the end of my tenure I had major health issues…it wasn’t worth my staying on at that time in that state of health,” he told TV3 after President John Mahama in his State of the Nation Address gave him a special mention for ending the load shedding. “I salute the former Power Minister, Dr Kwabena Donkor… and his Deputy Minister John Jinapor. It has taken teamwork and the cooperation of many people to achieve this success,” President Mahama said.

Ghana’s electricity crisis caused President Mahama to create the Power Ministry in November 2014 with the view to resolve the three-year crisis that slumped the country’s economic growth due to erratic power cuts. Dr Donkor who was put at the helm of affairs, promised to resign should he fail to end it by January 1, 2016; a promise that was seen as uncharacteristic of Ghanaian politicians. Even before the date was due, a number of people criticised him for his handling of the crisis and called on him to be honourable enough by resigning since there was no indication of the crisis, which has been tagged as ‘dumsor’, ending.

On December 30, 2015 he controversially announced an end to ‘dumsor’ in a statement, saying, “The Ministry of Power wishes to inform the public that its load shedding programme in respect of electricity supply has been brought to an end”. “The Ministry takes this opportunity to express its profound gratitude and appreciation to the entire citizenry and residents of Ghana for their forbearance and understanding during those difficult times”.