According to a report by Indo Asian News Service, Ghana has invited undisclosed number of Indian power companies to invest in thermal and renewable energy projects in the west African country that has suffered chronic power blackouts in the last three years.

“The Chinese companies are already there and we want Indian power companies to explore the possibility to invest and reap the benefits. India must not wait for China to takeover. I will be happy if India shows interest,” Kwame Ampofo, chairman Energy Commission of Ghana, said in a statement from the Powerelec Ghana 2016 event.

“Ghana has announced an ambitious programme of adding new power generation capacity of 3,665 MW over the next five years, thereby more than doubling the amount of existing capacity,” the statement said.

The West African nation has suffered from power shortages for over three years forcing most businesses and homes to depend to diesel powered generators. But the burden of running this generators has most of the time left many without electricity for hours at a time.

The power outages, which are the worst in Ghana since independence, have been so common to a point citizens have nicknamed the country’s President John Mahama “Mr Dumsor”, meaning “Mr on and off”, a name the president has acknowledged and laughed about.

Electricity shortage in Ghana has been occasioned by years on underinvestment and poor management of oil revenues in the west African country and now threatens to melt down one of Africa’s shining economies.

“The increasing Ghanaian middle class has a thirst for power. We regret that supply has not caught up with demand that also arises out of our exponential growth,” Ghana’s power minister, Kwabena Donkor, told Financial Times.