Blackout hits Kotoka Int. Airport

The Kotoka International Airport in Accra yesterday received its fair share of the rampant power outages across the country as it was hit with total blackout for close to an hour.

Daily Guide gathered that the power outage disrupted serious activities including landing of flights because the control tower could not function effectively. To make a bad situation worse, the airport’s standby generator also failed to power the place on time for business to return to normalcy.

Sources said intermittent power outages had become the order of the day as the airport had experienced outages in recent times.

Passengers were livid at the airport over the incident as they virtually struggled for breath in the very hot arrival and departure halls.

The incident, analysts argued, somewhat dented Ghana’s enviable image as an attractive destination in the sub-region. Airport sources informed DAILY GUIDE that the power outage occurred around 11:30am, lasting for about 50 minutes. According to the sources, power outages had become regular features at the airport in recent times, costing the state institution huge sums of cash to power the standby generator.

“The power at the airport goes on and off all the time in recent times and we always rely on our standby generator immediately the lights go off. Unfortunately, I don’t know why the generator failed us,” the sources told Daily Guide.

It was not immediately confirmed the cause of the power failure from both the national grid and the standby generator as engineers at the airport were busily working to fix the problem.

This worrying phenomenon happened at a time that the Mahama-led governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) and Volta River Authority (VRA) officials had initially promised to end current daytime load-shedding on Monday, November 5, 2012.

Ghanaians have also been promised that the load-shedding would end by the end of November. Attempts to get official reaction failed as the Ghana Civil Aviation parried questions to the Ghana Airports Company.