Mahama urges ECG to ensure equality in load shedding

President John Dramani Mahama has tasked the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to address the anomalies with the ongoing load shedding timetable to ensure equality.

This follows complaints by consumers that ECG is not being consistent with the schedule.

The load shedding exercise is due to the shortage of gas from the West Africa Gas Pipeline Company which has disrupted the VRA’s ability to produce and supply power.

ECG has noted that the exercise is likely to continue into next year if repair works on the Gas Pipeline are not completed by the end of the year.

Speaking at a consultative meeting of the Public Utility and Regulatory Commission (PURC), President Mahama called on ECG to rectify the challenges with the load shedding time table.

“As I have been criss-crossing the country, one of the issues that people have been unhappy with is the load management programme; they complain it is not following the trend that has been published.

“It must be done according to the published pattern and us we ourselves put in additional generation and try to mitigate it, I think that if we can make the burden on consumer lighter progressively that will be very much appreciated”.

For his part, Chief Executive Officer of VRA, Kweku Awotwi indicated that there has been a drop in deficit of the load shedding.

“A few weeks ago the deficit in the load shedding especially at the very beginning of the pipeline reached as high as 350 megawatts but I believe that number is down to 200 subject to confirmation”.