EDITORIAL: The VRA And Tarzan Affair

THE DECISION by Dr. Charles Ives Wereko-Brobby, Chief Executive of the Volta River Authority (VRA) to bow out of office may not have come as a big surprise to many Ghanaians. His exit, particularly against the backdrop of specific allegations, made against him by the local union of the Public Service Workers Union (PSWU) and the Senior Staff Association, is welcome news. The fact that his deputy in charge of Engineering, Mr. Jabesh Amissah-Arthur, has also resigned and three other senior managers have been suspended for six months in addition to serving a six-month probation, is a pointer to the sordid and confused state of affairs within the VRA.

We are delighted by the government's decision to dissolve the board of directors to facilitate its (VRA's) restructuring and to review its Act that gives excessive powers to the Chief Executive to make it conform to current trends. We are, however, sad that at the time VRA is crying for tariff increases, it has been bedevilled by poor planning and costly delays in the implementation of the $280 million Aboadze Thermal Plant. The plant is still experiencing difficulties with its auxiliary component, the Osagyefo power barge to be sited at Ejisu, which was constructed in 1999 at a cost of $110 million and is yet to produce any power while its 32 mega watts plant is standing idle in Takoradi.

These, coupled with the low levels of water in the Volta Dam and the costly importation of power from Cote d'Ivoire, may have led to increased subsidies from government even in the face of managerial and technical inefficiencies. We at The Chronicle have always sought to bring out into the open these inefficiencies within the VRA, a strategic national asset which must at all cost be protected from imminent collapse.

We believe it was out of this same concern that the unionised workers and the senior staff acted the way they did.

But we welcome the government's move to review the VRA Act because from the look of things it is now clear that the out-going Chief Executive may have acted on the authority vested in him by the Act establishing the VRA and not out of any arbitrary exercise of power. The problem with VRA may, therefore lie more in the Act establishing it than in Wereko-Brobby whose style of management may have confused or confounded the workers.

It is hoped that with the resignations and suspensions of the three directors, the nation can now heave a sigh of relief that this long-drawn confusion in the VRA is over. We cannot afford to continue these unnecessary wranglings while the problem of power generation threatens to disrupt our development process. The government must now proceed quickly with measures to ensure the building of the requisite administrative, technical and managerial competence to stem the rot at the VRA.