Karpowership engages local community

Karpowership Ghana Limited has held a stakeholder engagement with the Tema Manhean Fishmongers and Smokers Association to get them acquainted with the company’s operations.

Communications Specialist for Karpowership Ghana, Miss Sandra Amarquaye, said the engagement was in line with the company’s principle of having transparent and sustainable relations with its stakeholders.

“At Karpowership, we value our relationship with our local stakeholders,” she said. “Thus it is important to regularly undertake these engagements so that our stakeholders understand our business and how we operate. We have had a similar engagement with the fishermen so we thought it best to engage the fishmongers this time.”

Miss Amarquaye used Ga, the local dialect, to demystify Karpower’s operations to the fishmongers, explaining that Karadeniz Powership Ay?egül Sultan, with an installed capacity of 235MW, has been running efficiently and has been producing, on average, 210 MW of uninterrupted electricity for Ghana since it began producing power in December 2015.

She added the second powership which is under construction will arrive later this year to provide the 450mw contractual capacity.

She further explained that with the use of Low Sulphur Heavy Fuel Oil, electricity produced by Karpowership is much cheaper than when crude oil and Natural Gas are used.

Touching on other CSR projects by Karpower, Mss Amarquaye said: “We have donated learning materials to some schools in the Tema New Town community. We also donated fishing nets to the fishermen; we also presented resource materials to the Tema New Town Police Station.”

In addition, she said, “we have provided potable water for seven community schools, the Tema Manhean Community Clinic, Tema New Town Police station and the Tema Fishing Harbour, by placing water tanks in 13 different locations.

This year, she said, the company has plans to donate more educational materials and bursary for brilliant but needy students in the community.

According to the fishmongers, the engagement was an eye-opening experience for them as Karpower’s presentation went a long way to clear their minds of misconceptions about the Powership.

Cynthia Commey, the Secretary of the Association, said from the presentation, the group now realizes that the rumours that Karpower was the cause of the high electricity tariffs were not true.