No Power in Northern and Upper East regions

Accra, April 22, GNA - The Volta River Authority has announced that there has been power outage in the Northern and Upper East regions affecting supply to customers of the Northern Electricity Department in those areas.

A statement signed by Ms. Abla Fiadjoe, Acting Director Corporate Services (VRA) said, the outage was caused by tripping on the 161kV Techiman-Tamale transmission line at 0158 hours on Friday April 21, 2006.

Since Friday, four ground crews have been conducting line inspections on the Techiman-Kintampo, Kintampo-Buipe, Buipe-Yapei and Yapei-Tamale segments of the affected 161kV line.

"In addition, by kind courtesy of the Ghana Air Force, a fifth crew is undertaking aerial patrol with a helicopter."

Earlier, at 1000 hours on Thursday, power supply to the Tamale Water Works at Dalun was disrupted due to the collapse of three towers serving the 34.5kV distribution line from Tamale to Dalun during a severe rainstorm. This fault was restricted to the Water Works supply area. The VRA is currently installing wooden poles as a temporary measure to get the Dalun line ready by the close of today, Saturday, April 22, 2006.

"We regret the inconvenience caused to our customers and wish to assure them that all efforts are being made to restore power as soon as possible," the statement said.