Mr President, ‘bleeding’ GRIDCo ‘dying’; pay ESLA, VALCO, ECG debts – Staff

Power aggregator Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) “is dying” and President Nana Akufo-Addo must intervene to save the state-owned bulk power transmitter, the workers have appealed via placards on May Day.

During the 1 May 2019 parade of workers at the Independence Square in Accra, some staff of the power company brandished placards with inscriptions to drum home their SOS call to the president to save the company from collapse.

Some of the placards read: “GRIDCo is bleeding”, “ECG/VALCO debt killing GRIDCo”, “No GRIDCo, no 1District, 1Factory”, “Energy sector without GRIDCo is useless”, “GRIDCo is viable; government pay us our ESLA debt”, “No ESLA money = dum dum”, “Government don’t throw away GRIDCo like ECG”, “Current tariff killing GRIDCo”, “ESLA – GRIDCo = Dumsor”, “Mr President, aagbe GRIDCo”, “Lack of maintenance = More dumsor” among others.

Parts of Ghana experienced intermittent power outages in the past one month, a situation that was mostly blamed on some public works as well as challenges with GRIDCo.