Frequent Power Interruptions -Youth go on rampage

Whether it is the fault of the Volta River Authority (VRA) or the Electric Company of Ghana (ECG), electric power supply has become very erratic and unreliable of late in many parts of the country.

Between March and April, residents of the national capital have undergone many debilitating outages leading to loss of economic man-hours, destruction of industrial and domestic equipment and many other inconveniences.

A component in ADM's air-conditioner was blown last month due to a "violent" outage. ADM has just come out of almost three days of a power outage.

The frustration is reaching boiling point with some ECG clients. Last week, a group of angry young people from Asante-Mampong vandalised vehicles belonging to the Sekyere West District Chief Executive, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and other public institutions, in reaction to power outages in the town.

A saloon car belonging to the District Chief Executive, which had been parked at his official residence, was dented while the windscreen and side glasses were smashed.

Considerable damage was also caused to the headlamp; side glass, driver's mirror and windscreen of a new four-wheel vehicle of the National Disaster Management Organisation were destroyed together with a fire tender belonging to the Ghana National Fire Service and two vehicles and two television sets of the ECG.

Mr Kusi Appiah, District Coordinating Director, described the violent action by the youth as unfortunate, especially when ECG had used the People's Assembly to explain the technical reasons behind the power outages.

"We are not happy about the way and manner power supply to the area keep getting interrupted but taking the law into our own hands certainly cannot be said to be right under any circumstance" he said.