Government distributes free energy saving bulbs to Ghanaians

The Ministry of Energy, as part of efforts to reduce energy consumption, has distributed 12 million LED bulbs to Ghanaians through the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

Each metropolitan assembly will receive 50,000 of the bulbs, 40,000 for each municipal assembly and 30,000 for each district assembly, covering all types of the 6 watts, 9 watts and 13 watts bulbs.

The initiative which costs GH¢200 million is part of government’s plan to promote a shift from the use of incandescent and Compact Fluorescent Lamps to the LED and as well help consumers to save money on electricity tariffs.

The distribution exercise is expected to last for three months.

LED bulbs are more efficient at turning energy into light, therefore less of the energy radiates from the bulb as heat.

Mr John Peter Amewu, the Minister of Energy, who made the presentation to the Deans of the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in Accra on Thursday, said the gesture was in accordance with government’s policy to encourage the efficient use of energy in view of the increasing electricity generation costs.

He said the gesture was also a nation-wide Energy Conservation and Demand-side Management exercise, targeting homes, hospitals, schools, and strategic institutions, since their collective energy consumption accounted for over half of the national electricity demand.

According to the Minister, to ensure that government achieved the intended purpose for the exercise, a comprehensive audit would be conducted by relevant agencies, a month after the distribution of the items.

On the distribution process, the Minister said MMDAs were expected to form a task force to facilitate the exercise as well as provide comprehensive data on all recipients of bulbs, a month following receipt for audit purposes.

The details include the name of recipients, telephone number, quantity of LED bulbs received and house number or address.

Mr Amewu reacting to the recent power interruption in the country, attributed the issue to the shutdown of all power plants that feed on gas to enable them carry out a cleaning exercise on the gas pipeline from Nigeria to Takoradi.

Due to this, he said the Ministry had to take down 700 megawatts of power off the grid.

However, he emphasised that, the exercise had come to an end and assured Ghanaians that government had allocated enough funds and put in place measures to ensure stable power supply, stressing that the country was not in an era of ‘dumsor’.

Mr William Owuraku Aidoo, Deputy Minister of Energy in charge of Power, touching on the malfunction of streetlights in some parts of the country, said government was working assiduously to address the problems, attributing the issue to cable theft by individuals.

He appealed to the citizenry to serve as a watchdog and report any individual caught stealing streetlight cables to the Police for persecution to serve as deterrent to others.