A drop in electricity generation in Ivory Coast and Ghana has left households and businesses fuming as well as cutting power supplies to neighbouring West African countries Mali and Burkina Faso, officials said.

A prolonged dry season has reduced water levels at hydropower dams in both countries that in some cases could take months to resolve, hampering productivity, raising costs and hitting the economies of the world’s biggest cocoa producers.

In Ivory Coast, which exports power to six countries, the national power company faces a generation deficit of about 200 megawatts (MW), or nearly 10% of its 2,230 MW capacity, director general Ahmadou Bakayoko told a news conference on Friday.

Officials told Reuters that most power companies in the country were producing at reduced capacity.

“Electricity production at the national level has been severely impacted since November 2020 by major unforeseen technical incidents on our electricity generation tools,” Energy Minister Thomas Camera told the same news conference.

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Source: SweetCrudeReports