Accra, March 4, GNA - The Ministry of Transportation on Wednesday ordered an investigation into the circumstances and causes of the series of power outages at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) last Monday. A press release signed by Mr Kweku Sersah-Johnson, Director of Public Affairs of the Ministry, said the Minister of Transport, Mr Mike Hammah called for the probe after he inspected the electrical power plant installation at the Airport.

The release said the Minister described the incident as embarrassing and needed thorough investigation to establish what really went wrong.

It added that the minister expressed his regrets to travellers and the public for the inconvenience and gave the assurance that efforts were being made to forestall future occurrences of such magnitude. The press release said Mr Giles Appeatu-Mensah, Electrical Manager of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), informed the minister that when the national power grid tripped, resulting in the outages, the standby generators of the GACL were switched on immediately but a problem with the distribution network most likely prevented the supply of energy to feed the system.

It said Mrs Essie Annor-Sackey, Managing Director of the GACL, assured the Minister that she and her staff were committed to making the KIA an aviation destination and hub in West Africa. 4 March 09