Officials of the Volta River Authority (VRA), and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) put up a ‘transmission failure’ as the cause of the nationwide disruption that is continuing in parts of Accra and Tema as well as parts of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
However, caller after caller into the two programmes said they are tired of the excuses and asked managements of the two institutions to improve their supervision of the shoddy services or fire non-performing staff.
For many of the callers, it is the failure of the management systems to properly demand productivity of staff that has led to the persistent failure and its attendant ‘excuses’. For some others, heads must simply roll to ensure efficiency.
The Public Relations Officer of the ECG, Madam Gloria Dua Sakyi had told Joy FM’s Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah on the Super Morning Show, that her company’s failure to supply power to the affected areas was due to a lack of supply from the VRA.
She said the VRA had problems with a major transmission line and that officials were working round the clock to restore transmission and hopefully by close of day, it should be restored. She said some of the areas had already been restored to regular supply.
“You know they generate and then they transmit and then we do the distribution which comes to you, the customers. So in the line of transmitting the power to us there was a problem with a line between Accra and Tema and it created a lot of problems but I think they’ve come around it and we are all working together very hard to put the pieces together.”
The Chief Executive Officer of VRA, Mr. James Ofedie, who also spoke on the same programme, said the transmission failure initially on a major line that serves several towns from Akosombo to Tafo and then to Kumasi and several other parts in northern Ghana, was the genesis of the national blackout.
He said the faulted line led to the overloading of the other lines that could have done the job, and they also ‘gave way somehow’. That resulted in an initial blackout in many areas.
“Then later in the day around 11am, we had another problem at our Achimota sub-station, what we call a waves trap…an integral part of the transmission system. It got broken and also damaged the transmission line at Achimota and you know between Achimota and Tema is a major load centre. So when this line went down we had problems meeting the demand in full. We were left with two lines…, unfortunately one of the two also got faulted and went down. We were left with only one line running between Achimota and Tema and that proves a major challenge to the supplier of the system and led to massive load shedding in Accra. In the process of trying to restore the load, the entire system, the generating system failed because of the disturbances, the periodic disturbances during the restoration process the generating unit had to shut down automatically to avoid damage to the unit. So this led to the blackout in the entire country for a couple of minutes, maybe about 50 minutes…”
He said inspection of lines and restoration works were continuing through the morning and expressed the hope that work would be completed in good time. He said even though wide-spread failures that caused the black-out are rare, they are not entirely impossible.
Ms Abla Fiajoe, Public Relations Officer of the VRA, told Ekuorba Gyasi on Adom FM that a thorough investigation of the operating systems would be undertaken today to unearth the problems and added that even though the authority performs regular maintenance to ensure efficiency, occasional breakdowns can be expected from time to time.
She also admitted the power outage affected several parts of the country and expressed hope all those affected would be restored by close of day.
Enough of the excuses
But the callers would have none of the explanations, alleging that even though the authorities explain that there is no systematic load shedding exercise, it is exactly what pertains in several parts of the country.
Said one who identified himself as Dot in Accra; “every time we have a major event with foreign dignitaries; March 6, Ga Chief enstoolment, UNCTAD, ECG always disappoints the country. Is it sabotage? It’s about time heads roll for incompetence.”
Donald at the University of Ghana was all ‘thanks’ to the ECG for the ‘army of mosquitoes that made away with pints of blood last night’, while Davis in Koforidua said he felt very sorry when the power went off but it was restored in five minutes.
Andy from Ahwidiem said the lights go on-and-off everywhere and it is worse at the Asutifi District.
Another caller, Isaac, said the Monday black-out was a disgrace to the entire nation. He said it is a disgrace because given the all-important UNCTAD meeting underway and the President, with his cabinet and Energy Minister assuring that there is no energy problem, it was unthinkable that power would go off at the time it did. He said those in control should be bold to tell all the truth about the real situation.
One Richard from Labone, said with Ghana’s search for investors, it is disgraceful for the nation to suffer this level of power failures and those in charge should sit up.
Fofo David from Dumas Kobo believes whenever there is a major examination, the ECG fails to deliver and asked for a more efficient company to manage the power.
Osomfo Ato: “Sometimes we are shocked about the way we are conducting our affairs as a nation led by so-called educated elite, bold men and other people we thought had the experience to lessen our woes. I sit here my lights go off about five times a day. Kojo what happened yesterday was no news in my area here. It goes off about five times a day and the president keeps on with ‘usurious talks’; we are bringing this from the moon, we are bringing this from the sun. The result is that we don’t have anything, our small, small businesses are collapsing with their big suits going all over the world yet they are not able to deliver even clearing of rubbish on the streets, they are not able to deliver it. All that they think about is their succession and the people they want in power….I think this is a disgrace ….Mr. President Kufuor, this is a disgrace to you and your government. You are not being fair to Ghanaians at all.”
Nii from Kasha said it is about time Ghanaians demanded accountability from people they put in responsible positions, rather than perpetuate a life of ‘pay as usual’ at the end of the month whether employees deliver or not.
Source: MyJoyOnline
Author: Isaac Yeboah
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