Akosombo, April 12, GNA - Former Vice-President, Professor John Atta Mills, has appealed to technocrats to be forthright when advising the politicians so as to avert national crisis in future. He said it should be the responsibility of technocrats not to withhold information from politicians especially those that could be extremely crucial in averting national crisis.

Prof Mills said this when he visited the Hydro Generation Department of the Volta River Authority (VRA) on Wednesday to acquaint himself with what is being done to salvage the current energy crisis. He said regardless of who is at the helm of the nation, it should be the outmost concern of technocrats to tell the fellow the bare truth and in instances where politicians are not paying heed to their admonishments, go public with it.

Prof Mills said technocrats are duty bound to seek the national good even if the political class is not willing to listen. Striking a nationalist tone, Professor Mills told the workers that anytime they had information of vital national interest, they should not hesitate to share it with the government no matter how unpalatable the information might be and "no matter who is in power." He said they should be sensitive to national needs and help protect national assets at their disposal.

In response to a question by Prof Mills as to what the public could do to salvage the situation, the Director of Hydro Generation at VRA, Mr Kirk Koffi, said there was the need for the public to adopt energy saving methods since nearly 100 megawatts of electricity could be saved annually when energy efficiency measures were adopted.

Mr Koffi also stressed the need for a review of tariffs since low tariffs make running thermal plants very difficult. He assured Prof Mills that the national interest would remain the guiding principle of workers in VRA.