Officials of the Volta River Authority (VRA) and Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have given assurance that electricity supply will be stable for the election period and the rest of the year.
The two organisations said, they had made adequate preparations to ensure that the counting of votes by the Electoral Commission (EC), which is to begin at 5 p.m. and continue for some hours, will not be disrupted by any power outages, even if counting should continue deep into the night.
Director of Special Duties of the VRA, Mr Kofi Asante Okai, told the Daily Graphic that “as far as the VRA is concerned there is enough energy and capacity to supply the ECG for the rest of this year and next year”.
That, he said, was due to higher than average inflow of water into the Volta reservoir at the end of the flood season, and it was their expectation that the combination of hydro and thermal production could provide stable power for the rest of the year.
There has been adequate rainfall and we do not anticipate any power outage from the generating plant and explained that though it was their responsibility to generate power, it was also the responsibility of the Grid Company of Ghana (GRIDCO) to transport power to ECG which in turn supplies consumers around most parts of the country, and expressed the hope that they would also stand up to the task.
The Director of Operations for ECG, Mr Andrew Tonto Bafour, said the ECG had made adequate preparations towards ensuring that the election period, particularly the counting stage of the electoral votes would not be disrupted by power outages.
Mr Bafour said ECG would not do anything to hamper the supply of power since it was their responsibility to ensure that electricity was available for counting.
“Prior to the elections we have been doing preventive maintenance on all equipment and sub-stations to prevent the disruption of stable supply of power”, he said.
According to him, if anything was beyond their control, they would make the public aware and also inform the EC to prepare towards that to avoid any complications.
Mr Bafour also said they had made arrangements to ensure that all their personnel, including those who may be on shift duty at the sub-stations, exercise their franchise.
He described Sunday, December 7, 2008, the day of the election, as a good day because usually the pressure on the plants was not much, since a lot of commercial activities were down on Sundays.
