Kumasi receives boost in electricity
A $15 million electricity bulk supply point has been installed to boost electricity supply to the Kumasi Metropolis and surrounding towns and villages.
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The 66 MVA is currently on a test run and would complement the existing energy output at the bulk supply point at Ridge, a suburb of Kumasi. The original electricity supply point is unable to support the growth and expansion of Kumasi and surrounding areas.
The Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Mr Armah-Kofi Buah, who inspected the project, said the government was not only obliged to improve on electricity supply but was focus attention on making transmission infrastructure more reliable.
“President Mahama is keen and committed to ensuring that the backbone of electricity supply is solid and reliable,” he said.
He said the long-term strategy of the government was for it to be able to cater for the energy needs of both industry and domestic electricity users.
He explained that the $15 million project was geared towards addressing challenges in electricity generation and reliability.
Mr Buah said an added advantage with the project was the space it offered for engineers to work on faulty lines without shutting down the entire electricity generation system. “What this means is that when there is a fault on an identified line, it could be isolated and worked on while other lines would be working. This is unlike previous times when all lines, including those not affected, were shut down when there was a fault.
Mampong electrification project
The Energy Minister also inugrated a rural electrification infrastucture at Bosom-Kyekye and seven other communities all in the Mampong Municipality in the Ashanti Region.
The infrastucture, facility which began in 2008, aims at enhancing the livelihood of the people in the communities, stem rural-urban migration and enhance teaching and learning.
Before the inugration the infrastucture , the Energy Minister assured the people that the government would work hard to ensure that electricity was always available and in the right amounts.
He explained that the plan originally was to ensure that 1,000 communities were hooked onto the national grid by the year 2020. However, President John Mahama described the timeline as relatively long and urged the ministry to shorten the duration to 2016.
The Chief Executive for the Mampong Municipal Assembly, Mr Emmanuel Dede Appiah, appealed to the minister to exert influence on the producers of electricity to upgrade electricity supply to the municipality, because electric power currently was too low. He said the situation had made it difficult for the newly-installed water supply systems to pump treated water to all the areas.