The Volta River Authority (VRA) is seeking funding from lending agencies to reinforce the radial line from Kumasi through Sunyani to ensure constant and reliable power supply to Northern Ghana.

Mr Tony Gadzi, Area Manager in charge of Transmission announced this at the 40th anniversary celebration of the VRA in Tamale on Tuesday.

He said the only radial line from Kumasi to Techiman, which serves the north, is unreliable because any problem along the line affects supply to the north.

The anniversary is on the theme "40 years of powering Ghana's development." Mr Gadzi said consumers from the northern sector comprising Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Brong-Ahafo regions owed the VRA about 36 billion cedis.

He said the uneconomic tariffs were inadequate for the VRA to make profit, adding, "this is having a dampening effect on the operations of the authority."

Mr Samuel Agyapong, Commercial Manager, said the VRA would go all out next year to provide all customers with pre-paid metre services to ensure satisfactory delivery.

He asked consumers not to view recent frequent power outages as intentional, saying "they are caused by unplanned disruption along the radial line." He advised health institutions to provide their own standby generators to cater for their power needs during power cuts.

Mr Agyapong said some unscrupulous individuals also vandalise the authority's equipment in some parts of the country resulting in heavy losses and appealed to the public to expose such persons.

GRi../

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US Forces in Ghana to provide humanitarian assistance

Mankoadze (Central Region) 15 November 2001 - About 150 United States Marines and Navy Personnel on Wednesday made an amphibious landing on the shores of Mankoadze in the Central Region to begin a four-day training programme with their Ghanaian counterparts.

The exercise dubbed - "West African Training Cruise 2002" was aimed at providing humanitarian disaster relief assistance to the people of Mankoadze.

It involved the landing of troops to defeat dissident, who had taken over the area, and extend assistance to the people. One hundred and five officers and men of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) made up of 31 from the Navy and 74 from the Army took part in the exercise.

Sub Lieutenant Michael Larbi, of the Directorate of Public Relation of GAF, said the programme, which is organised every two years was a multinational exercise between US and West African troops.

This year, Ghana and Benin were the only two West African countries that opted for the exercise but Benin could not make it. The whole exercise was in four phases.

The first two phases involved the movement of troops in four ships from Sekondi to Mankoadze and the landing and clearing of insurgents on the Mankoadze beach.

The third and the fourth phases would take place on Thursday and would involve the provision of humanitarian relief assistance to the inhabitants and the withdrawal of troops.