'Citizens' threat to burn ECG, a danger to national security'

The Executive Director of the Ghana Institute of Governance and Security, David Agbee has warned that the worsening power crisis in the country is a security threat.

A few weeks ago, angry residents of Tabora and Odorkor blocked roads and vandalised property in protest to a protracted power outage.

Similarly, irate residents of Chantan in Accra besieged the office of power distributor Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) a few weeks ago, and threatened mayhem if the erratic power situation was not resolved immediately.

Just this Thursday evening, November 20, 2014, angry residents in Ashanti East attacked an installation of ECG at Nsuta, near Mampong during which they assaulted a security man and damaged a chair.

There were fresh attacks on the same power station on Friday, November 21. Both cases have been reported to the Police for security arrangements to be made to protect ECG staff and property.

Also angry residents of Aboabo in the region threatened to burn installations of the ECG if the power situation does not improve.

Today, Saturday November 22, two separate demonstrations over erratic power supply have been scheduled to hit the two biggest capitals of Ghana – Accra and Kumasi – over the same power situation.

One is in Aboabo in Kumasi and the other at Fadama Accra.

David Agbee fears the situation could escalate into a national uproar if the power situation is not handled properly by those in the sector.

"It is a threat to our national security," he told STARR NEWS Friday.

Ghana has been plunged into a serious power crisis following a decision by power producer Volta River Authority (VRA) to shut down two turbines of the Akosombo Dam in order to save it from collapsing.

In a report cataloguing the status of its current and future power generation projects, the VRA predicted that next year will be more challenging for the energy sector unless some drastic actions are taken.

Samuel Fletcher, Head of the Corporate Communications Unit of VRA, said some of the measures being put in place to save energy would have heavy impact on consumers.

He added that the challenges currently facing the energy sector are beyond their control.

“Most of these challenges are beyond anybody’s control, I mean if it is not raining enough into the dam nobody in particular is to blame. I think for us as an operating company what we need to do is to manage what we get in the reservoir," Fletcher told Starr News in an interview on November 12, 2014.

“Interesting enough some of the measures will have some heavy impact on the current energy consumption in the country,” Fletcher warned.

Fletcher added: “Akosombo is very critical in our power generation; it still gives us more than 50 percent of the country’s electricity so we are trying to tell people that if we run four units and get 600 megawatts everyday throughout, we can have enough water to take us to the next rainy season.”

“If we do 900 megawatts, we will not get to the next rainy season and at some point we would have to stop.”