GRIDCo climaxes 10-year anniversary celebration with award ceremony

The Ghana Grid Company(GRIDCo) has held a durbar to climax its ten years Anniversary in Tema with presentation of awards to winners of Inter- Departmental Quiz and group areas that performed very well in safety, good housekeeping, among others.

The durbar brought together staff of GRIDCo from its operational areas, former CEOs of GRIDCo( Ing. Joseph Wiafe, Ing.Charles Darku and Ing.William Amuna), Chief Executive Officer of Tullow Ghana Kweku Awotwi, Executive Director of Energy Commission Dr. Ahenkorah and many others.

The theme for the 10 years Anniversary was " Power Transmission-Ten Years On' reflect the metamorphosis that we have gone through."

Delivering a welcome address, CEO of GRIDCo Mr Jonathan Amoako Baah who recounted the history of GRIDCo way back in August 2008, said: "GRIDCo has been transformed from an organization that inherited a weak transmission infrastructure and a core staff who were uncertain about their future as former employees of Volta River Authority(VRA) into a national strategic asset that has also become an employer of choice."

Touching on the achievements of the company, Mr Amoako Baah, said "we have increased the number of of substations from forty three (43) to sixty (60). Over the same period, the length of transmission lines have increased from four thousand ( 4000) circuit kilometers to over five thousand, one hundred(5,100)."

"Work Area locations have also increased from five (5) to seven (7) to effectively respond to faults. We note that over this same period the number of generating stations have increased," he added.

Mr Amoako Baah paid a glowing tribute to the former chief executives of the company for the solid foundation they laid which has brought the company this far.

He said "because of these leaders and the efforts of the working staff of our company,today we have a story to tell."

In his remarks the chairman of the GRIDCo Board of Directors, Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere , said the company over the last 10 years enhanced the existing transmission interconnection between Ghana and neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire and Togo.

Mr Amihere said the company under its $20million substations Upgrade Project Local Initiative, had engaged the services of Ghanaian companies to work on expansion projects at Konongo in the Ashanti Region, Kpeve, Sogakope and Aflao in the Volta Region, and Yendi and Ayanfuri in the Northern and Central Regions.

Similarly, in line with business sustainability, the board chairman said through its subsidiary,GRIDTEL, which started operations in January 2017, GRIDCo had acquired a license from the National Communication Authority(NCA) to build and operate a national terrestrial fibre network.

Like any other energy sector company, he said, GRIDCo was faced with a myriad of challenges.

However, he said, the company would approach the next decade with the determination to truly remain the backbone to power delivery in Ghana and the sub-region.