Ketu District endorses multi-billion - Euro power project

The Ketu North District Assembly (KNDA) has accepted the location, development and operation of the 2000 Mega Watts, 2 billion- Euro Combined Cycle Power Plant in the District.

The decision was taken at a general meeting of the Assembly at Dzodze in the Volta Region. The KNDA had earlier met with the Consultants and Promoters of the Project who made a presentation to members in a letter titled: “Invitation to Brief the Ketu North District Assembly.”

After the presentation by Finite Earth Consult led by Mr Mayor Agbleze, the Promoters, MacBaron Group requested that the question should be put to vote as to whether the “Assembly would accept the Ketu Power Project (KPP)”.

Mr Sammy Keme, Presiding Member, emphasised the need for collaboration between the District Assembly and KPP to ensure smooth realisation of the Project. The many correspondences between the relevant Government agencies and the Promoters were displayed to the Assembly in pursuit of transparency, which was also witnessed by Mr Kofi Lawson, the District Chief Executive.

The Consultants revealed that the core technology of KPP is German with Siemens AG as the equipment supplier and Ferrostaal GmbH as the engineering and procurement contractor. The Consultants and Promoters used the Assembly’s platform to address critical land acquisition issues as well as the profile of key actors in Project development.

KPP is envisaged to generate 25,000 primary, secondary and tertiary jobs from concept to operations. The availability of power in the community alone would also attract local industries.

In addition, the Project is expected to build schools, hospitals, markets, social centres and provide many other linkages and amenities as a matter of course for the betterment of the area. The project is located on a 4 km2 parcel of land known as Adzoatsikpo, which straddles three communities namely; Adzoatsi, Ehie and Torgbeve.

Commenting on compensation for the land, Mr Agbleze said: “We would do a meticulous job to capture every land owner in the project area, obtain title in their very names, compute values independently by government evaluators and fairly compensate them for the land.”

He assured the Assembly that “the land acquisition process and valuation would be at no cost to the land owners. However, the land owners are also free to engage other professionals to go through the processes for them primarily or as a verification of the work”.

Mr Agbleze confirmed KPP’s commitment to good neighbourliness saying: “At the end of the day, it is our vision that KPP, as corporate citizens, will live in harmony with the constituent communities, for which reason we are making every effort to relate properly with everyone right from the onset.”

He said: “The size of KPP is simply dictated by the economics of scale, engineering consistency, and the market demand. Compared to the Akosombo, at the time it was built and the challenges they had to face, KPP is a much simpler engineering with today’s resources though with more than twice the output of Akosombo and Kpong.”

Responding to questions on the Project viability, Mr Agbleze estimated that “the current power grid can take on an additional 2000 megawatts without hassle and would expand as we go along. The market in West Africa is open and our cousins in Togo and Benin would also benefit greatly from KPP once we are generating dependable power. We are certain the market is real and available”.

“For once many of our graduates from these communities can work from home right here with their families without travelling elsewhere for non-existing jobs,” Mr Agbleze concluded.