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ECG cuts power to Kejetia Market over GHC5 million debt

The action has affected business at the market, especially at night. The market leaders have ordered their members to shut down their shops as they engage ECG officials

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) on Wednesday (22 June 2022) took Kejetia Market off the National Grid because of a GHC5 million debt.

The development has affected business at the market, especially at night.

After an emergency meeting, the leaders of the six traders’ unions at the market have ordered their members to shut down their shops in response to the power cut.

 

The leaders say their members’ safety cannot be guaranteed, given that the situation has plunged the entire trading hub into darkness.

The traders have begun to exert pressure on managers of the market to sign a contract for the installation of separate meters.

Although the traders have shown themselves proactive in resolving the problem, it is sill not clear exactly when power will be restored to the site.

A quarter of Ashanti could black out if … ECG warns

A quarter of the Ashanti Region could be without electricity if immediate action is not taken to remove encroachers from transmission sites, the managing director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in the region, Ing David Asamoah, said last week.

He said the situation is having a grave effect on the power company’s operations and warned of a water and power crisis if nothing is done immediately to forestall the challenges.

Speaking with Asaase News’s Ashanti regional correspondent, Jonathan Ofori, Asamoah said: “We have seen that people have encroached on our network: our substations, lines, cables. People have built and are even cooking on our cables …

“These are not the normal voltage. They are 11,000 volts, 33,000 volts, and so on …

“For instance, in Adoato, that’s the one that gives us water in the entire Ashanti Region. So, if that cable fails, then it means that there will be no water for Ashanti Region and about a quarter of Ashanti could be without power,” Asamoah said.

“That is the reality on the ground. There could be no water and electricity.”

The communication manager for ECG in the Ashanti Region, Grace Garshong, described the situation as not very pleasant and a “security threat”.

Speaking with Beatrice Adu on The Big Bulletin on Thursday 9 June 2022, Garshong said some residents have “occupied our substations and our lines and it is very dangerous. So we had to sensitise them so they know that it is a security threat to them.”

She said the encroachers have been given up until the end of this month (June) to vacate such areas.

“We’ve given them till the end of the month and we’ve said that if they move, we’ll move in and demolish.”

“Laxity must stop”

However, Nana Yaw Akwada, the founder and executive director of the Bureau of Public Safety, has said the laxity of the pace at which the transmission companies are working to address the problem of encroachment is not tenable.

Also speaking on The Big Bulletin, Akwada said: “This phenomenon has been known to these two entities [ECG and GRIDCo] for a long time … they have themselves to blame … we sit down and allow people to encroach [on] such facilities … and to make matters worse, we give them time to vacate those places. It is unheard of anywhere.

“People are endangering their lives. In a country where it is a crime to commit suicide, we see people putting their lives and that of their families [whom they settle] under these grids. And when we see this, we have the audacity and the laxity to say we are giving them time to vacate.

“In the first place, it should never have happened. So we would want to advise them that they [ECG and GRIDCo) should move in and remove these encroachers as soon as possible. They must create that sense of urgency in the minds of the public.”

Fred Dzakpata and Jonathan Ofori

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