Report by Nana POKU
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDco) Ing. K Eeienyi has told the media that a lot is happening at the company’s stride in terms of retrofitting, expansion, and maintenance. This was disclosed to newsmen at the Ministry of Information as part of the ‘State of the Agencies Report’ to dilate on the true state of State-Owned Agencies (SOEs) in the country.
According to the CEO, his outfit has reduced operational and commercial losses to the barest minimum and posted for profits as against previous records. The engineer said his company needs over 200,000,000 dollars to fix some of its challenges to meet its targets.
He revealed that EIB has offered the company a 10 million Euros grant to revamp some of their old transmission lines, but some administrative bottlenecks have delayed the disbursement of the money. He however assured the nation of its readiness to unlock the grant to use for its purpose.
Again government has secured another 156,000,000 Euros facility, 56% of which is a grant, with the remaining 44 % being a loan to embark on massive restructuring to reposition the company for better service.
Again plans are afoot to change most obsolete lines and towers which are over 60 years and above and expand the lines to areas of the country not covered by electricity. He told the media that as a result of the state of these out-of-use transmission lines, services are most often affected, leading to intermittent power trips.
He however quickly added that it needs a lot of funding to fix it. However, every effort is being sought to address the issues.
He praised the regulatory agency; PURC for inching up the tariffs to cushion them a bit even though they still need some more. The Chief Executive lamented about the intractable challenges militating against the company, key amongst them being; Encroachment, Overgrowth, GALAMSEY, Obsolete machines and lines, monies locked up in debts, and lack of funding.
He called on the media to embark on the crusade to educate the public on the dangers of living very close to the pylons, excavating under the towers for minerals, farming in their corridors, burning bushfires around their towers, etc.
The CEO postulated that the activities of galamseyers have resulted in the company relocating their towers at a cost of over 200,000 dollars. He also bemoaned the obstruction they face from landowners who refuse to accept compensation to enable the company to create corridors for their pylons and towers.
He told Ghanaians that there are about 5231 megawatts of electricity generated by thermal and hydro power ready for use. The country needs about 3550 megawatts with the rest as reserves for emergencies. All that the country needs is gas, light crude, and gasoline to generate power. Ghana, therefore, has enough power to fall on.
