ECG mounts steel poles in Afram Plains

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is replacing all wooden electricity poles with steel tubular poles in the Kwahu Afram Plains.

So far, it has secured 649 of the steel poles under the ECG-funded projects to replace all the wooden poles, especially those in the bush and isolated communities described as ‘hot spots’.

The wooden poles are at risk of destruction from bush fires especially during the dry season, hence their replacement.

The exercise, which took off on December 1, 2015, is expected to be completed by the end of January 2016. 

Thirty contractors are engaged in the exercise, which involves transferring electricity cables from the wooden poles to the steel tubular ones.

Power outages
Briefing the Daily Graphic at Donkorkrom, the District Manager of the ECG, Mr Emmanuel Wodaku, expressed the hope that on completion of the exercise, the intermittent power outages during the dry season when fire gutted the wooden poles would end.

He appealed to the various communities to bear with the ECG anytime the contractors had to switch off power to enable them to replace the poles, stressing “it is to ensure uninterrupted power supply”.

According to him, the company used to wrap the lower parts of the wooden poles with steel plates but that did not stop the destruction of the wooden poles by fire.

Last year, the Daily Graphic visited the area and reported that the government’s effort to provide uninterrupted electricity supply was hampered by the destruction of the poles by bush fire.