Power transmission lines in Accra, Tema to be reconstructed
Power transmission lines within Tema and Accra would soon be reconstructed to boost electricity supply in those areas.
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The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), Mr William Amuna, who announced this, said the reconstruction exercise was one of the major projects to be undertaken by the company this year to deliver quality electricity service in the two cities.
Delivering an address at the third biennial congress of the senior staff association in Ho last Saturday, Mr Amuna said although Accra and Tema had become the biggest power demand areas in the country, the current lines constructed in 1975 could only carry 678 megawatts of power which was inadequate.
“We are going to change all the transmission lines to take up about 2,800 megawatts from new power generations in the next one year,” he said.
He also said the company would use that as an opportunity to clear all squatters under its transmission lines.
The CEO stated that the company had not been able to continue with some ongoing projects and also had delayed commencement of new ones due to financial constraints.
Financial Challenges
The power crises experienced over the past few years, he said had plunged GRIDCo’s finances into deeper woes, explaining that the fall in power supply, high rate of foreign exchange and high indebtedness of major customers such as the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) negatively affected revenue recorded last year, adding that the revenue of the company waned by 41 per cent last year.
“Our financial position has affected our ability to purchase critical spares and tools, as well as specialised equipment and specialised vehicles. This has a long-term effect on the operations of the company,” he said.
In spite of the challenges, he said GRIDCo was positioning itself to be a company which harnessed the full potential of its staff by equipping them with in-depth knowledge of industry best practices through both local and overseas training.
Centre of excellence
Mr Amuna announced that GRIDCo was in the process of establishing a centre of excellence in Kumasi in collaboration with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to train technicians, engineers and artisans to feed not only the power sector but industries in the country.
According to him, 80 potential lecturers from Ghana were to be trained, out of which 40 would be sent to Korea for further studies to run the centre and, therefore, appealed to staff to work hard and be selected for the training when the opportunity was offered.
He admitted that due to the financial position of the company, certain salary arrears were still outstanding but informed the staff that a consultant had been directed to do a salary survey to address the shortfalls associated with the salary structure.
Management, he said, was operating an open-door policy that gave room for workers to express their concerns through dialogue.
The congress was to enable the senior staff members to select a new executive to steer the affairs of the association and also discuss ways of working efficiently to deliver quality electricity service to customers.
New Transformer in Ho
As part of activities of the congress, a new transformer was inaugurated to help fully cover power supply in Ho.
The outgoing chairman of the association, Mr Justice Bernard Tekpor, stated that the past years had been trying times for the organisation and its workers.
However, workers should not give up or fail because it was their responsibility to have competent, trustworthy staff that would give GRIDCo a brighter future, he added.