Kandia inhabitants restore 17 electricity poles destroyed by rainstorm

Members of Kandia community near Gwollu in the Sissala West District have rebuilt 17 electricity poles pulled down by rainstorm two weeks ago, plunging several communities into total darkness.

The young and old from the farming community, which is 10 kilometres away from the district capital, Gwollu, on Thursday, filled with communal spirit, came out in their numbers to help the contractor, Salford Company Limited, to salvage the situation.

As at 1300 hours Thursday, when the Ghana News Agency visited the reconstruction site, community members bursting in physical energy were busily digging holes and lifting the electricity poles for fixing.

The site supervisor who only gave his name as Mr. Ole, said: “It’s an existing line, it has already been done, but due to the [strong] wind, some of the poles got broken [and] we are replacing them”.

“We are told it is 16 poles that got broken, so they gave estimates for 16 poles, it was later we realized that one got broken, we don’t know what happened, but we were fortunate that one of the wooden poles from the pair is good, we called our ‘Bigmen’ and they said we should use it, so we’re fixing 17 poles,” he added.

“Kandia community members here are offering voluntary service, because power is going to their area”.

He assured the affected communities that power would be restored by the close of day Thursday after working on the reconstruction of the poles for five days.

The community volunteers led by Mr. Mumuni Samiu, recounted some economic lost to the communities since the power saying: “We don’t hear Ghana’s issues (no news), the other is that thieves have become many, stealing our livestock, and also there are too many mosquitoes”.

He added, “Kandia committee always cleared weeds round the wooden poles to prevent fire, but it got to a time VRA took over and now they have somebody who preserves the wooden poles from fire”.