General News of Wednesday, 16 April 2014

Source: tv3network.com

No ‘dum so, dum so’ during Easter – VRA

The Volta River Authority (VRA) has assured that there will be no interruptions in supply of power during the Easter period, all things being equal.

Samuel Kwesi Fletcher, VRA’s Head of Corporate Communications, told TV3’s Sandra Amarquaye on Tuesday, April 15 that the Authority is working hard at generally stabilizing the power situation in the country.

“We are working very hard to make sure that the situation is even better than what we are experiencing,” Mr. Fletcher said.

“We as VRA don’t just look at Easter,” he pointed out. “We are looking at a time where power is so stable.”

He, however, mentioned that the stability of supply during the Easter period will be contingent upon other factors.

“We need to understand that we work with machines,” he noted, “if gas keeps flowing and we don’t have challenges with crude oil, obviously the Easter period should be very calm for us.” Other alternatives

Ghana’s energy sector has suffered setbacks as a result of, first of all, damage to the West African Gas pipelines, and later, low supply of gas from Nigeria. Water levels in the country’s hydroelectric dams have also run low.

"A year ago by this time, the level was 10 feet higher than what we have now. We hope that the rains will be great this year then we will pick up our levels.”

Mr. Fletcher called for consideration of alternative sources of power supply for the country’s demands. “We need to keep looking at other alternatives in our power business.”