Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has spent more than 14 million Ghana cedis on improving its System and expansion projects in the Accra West Region, between January and October this year.

The amount, a total of GH¢ 14,272,134.32, represents the cost of constructing 250 new projects to extend supply to unserved communities and improving the network serving some existing customers in the Region.

Accra West General Manager, Ing George Appiah-Kubi, who announced this, said the projects had improved the reliability and availability of power to customers, a statement released to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, on Monday said.

The statement said he stated the mission of the Company, which was to provide quality, reliable and safe electricity services to support the economic growth and development of Ghana, as the driving force behind these investments.

“We are aiming to reduce incidents of unplanned outages that occur as a result of faults on our networks, so we have invested in the latest technology to detect early fault signals, or where the faults occur, to restore supply in the shortest practicable time,” he said.

Ing. Appiah Kubi said there would be more investments lined up by the Company to make its electricity network more robust and efficient, especially during rainstorms.

The Accra West Regional Engineer, Jones Makumator, also said there would be other initiatives introduced to improve the quality of power supply to customers.

Ing Makumator outlined the Region’s new approach in dealing with vegetation, which he said, often interfered with the smooth supply of power.

“Our new vegetation control approach has drastically reduced the recorded faults on our rogue feeders from 239 trippings at the end of the first quarter to 51 trippings by the end of the third quarter,” Ing Makumator said.

He explained that following the high level of success recorded in the six-month pilot period, the Management would institutionalise the initiative to achieve zero trippings on rogue feeders.

The Accra West Public Relations Officer, Fred Baimbill-Johnson, said the communities, which benefitted from the 250 projects were from all the seven districts in the Accra West Region. The Districts are Kaneshie, Achimota, Ablekuma, Korle-Bu, Nsawam, Bortianor and Dansoman.