....JUSTIFIES POWER SALE TO BURKINA FASO
VOLTA RIVER Authority (VRA) chief executive, Dr. Charles Wereko- Brobby, has admitted that the Strategic Reserve Plant (SRP) he contracted to bail the country out of its energy crisis is corroded with a few problems, a report carried by Adom 106.3 FM at Tema stated.
He did not, however, say the depth of the hitches, but stated that the SRP should be operating within the next two or three weeks.
He disclosed this at Akuse last Friday when Energy Minister, Kwesi Nduom undertook a familiarization tour of VRA installations at Akosombo and Akuse.
According to him, the SRP is to generate 24 hour 100 megawatts of power as the level of water in the Akosombo dam reduces and this represents a very significant amount of energy that would have been produced from the Volta Lake.
Dr. Wereko-Brobby said that in the coming two or three years, if the G.E. Rental Plant is running, we are going to reduce the amount of water flowing through the lake and as such help build up the level.
Over the last decade, he said, more water was taken from the dam than was pragmatic, whereas if the lake is full, we should have enough water to generate power for two or three years.
The CEO said that electricity demand in the country is rated at 10% annually and that considering the fact that it is going to take us between four and six years to develop a fully-fledged thermal plant, the SRP will be a better choice till such a time.
On how much Ghana is renting the power plant from General Electric of the Untied States, the VRA chief executive said that he could not tell exactly what the figures are because they started with a particular figure but have to sit down and renegotiate due to delays but believed it is $180,000 and not $500,000 as being quoted.
Dr. Wereko-Brobby, who has been the target of VRA workers’ demonstration calling for his removal, admitted that Ghana is selling electricity to Burkina Faso in tune with regional intergration, at a time the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) has been compelled to shut down its operational potlines.
Chronicle’s investigations revealed that VALCO’s parent company, Kaiser Engineers, was the only company, among 14 that visited Ghana, to provide security guarantee from the Exim Bank for the construction of the Akosombo dam to generate 912 megawatts of power at a time the whole of Ghana was consuming only 50 megawatts.
No wonder back in America Kaiser was said to have gambled in the jungle. At Akuse, Energy Minister Nduom, who hinted that he would be seeking the mandate of his constituents to go to Parliament and, for that matter, can serve the ministry for only the coming 12 months, if he is permitted, was very particular about the recent sour commercial relations between Ghana and the United States.
According to him, lately, developments between the VRA and VALCO have caused the US to freeze commercial transactions between the two nations.
Re-fixing of tariff for VALCO ended in a deadlock, coinciding with the low level of water in the dam.
The minister called on VRA to take over the Osagyefo power barge now idling at Sekondi which was purchased at $100 million by the Ghana National Petroleum Company, as the barge is for Ghana.
He announced that government is coming out with a policy to provide the VRA with holdings to generate hydro-electricity, thermal power, transmission and a separate entity to manage the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Northern Electrification Project (NEP).
