Gov't spends C16bn a week to subsidise VRA

About ?80 billion is spent by government every six weeks to subsidise the public bill for electricity power consumption to the Volta River Authority (VRA).

Disclosing this to the media at Dam Site at Akosombo yesterday, the Chief Executive of the VRA, Dr Charles Yves Wereko-Brobby, noted that as much as he agrees that there?s the need for some subsidy to cushion the poor, he still shared the view that the rich in urban areas in particular, are not paying enough tariffs for their energy requirements.

According to him, the rich in society must not be given equal opportunity alongside the poor, since in his opinion, it is imperative for government to ensure that consumers of electric energy (hydro and thermal power) pay realistic tariff in order to save the ?80 billion that government has been compelled to dole out to the VRA while the government could have chanelled these funds toward development projects and other programmes to alleviate poverty in the country.

Dr Wereko-Brobby said these at a press briefing during the tour of the Akosombo Hydro Electric Power Plant by President John Agyekum Kufuor and his Burkinabe counterpart, HE Blaise Compaore, yesterday.

He disclosed that the VRA on behalf of the Government of Ghana has entered into an agreement with the Government of Burkina Faso to enable VRA supply electricity to some border country.

He explained that Volta River Authority entered into this agreement because Ghana had advised that country against constructing their own hydro dam.

Dr Wereko-Brobby added that the Burkina dam, would have caused water shortage into Ghana?s Akosombo dam. That would aggravate power crisis in the country.

He also noted that it is very costly to build and operate a hydro dam in recent times, adding that it is cheaper for Burkina to purchase power from Ghana than to build a new dam of their own, an advice which was accepted.

Dr Wereko-Brobby emphasised that the agreement to supply power to Burkina Faso is not on pure commercial basis, due to the mutual benefit that would be derived by the two countries.

VRA has been supplying power to Togo and Benin for over 30 years now. President Kufuor and President Blaise Compaore together with their spouses, and ministers from both Burkina and Ghana were conducted round the sub stations and the turbine sites at the Akosombo dam. President Campaore urged Ghana to consider a sugar factory to cut down imports.