Government to rehabilitate Electricity Company

The government is to raise about $80m to assist the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to improve its power delivery.

Albert Kan-Dapaah, Minister of Energy, said "we are in discussions with our development partners to secure more funds to rehabilitate and modernise the existing energy infrastructure."

''We are also in the process of securing $20m to meet the long-term investment requirements in the distribution sector.'' Kan-Dapaah was speaking at the opening of the 8th quadrennial National Delegates Conference of the Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which has the theme, "Provision of quality and reliable utility services, challenges facing the companies and the union."

The Minister said the government was also investing in the expansion and reinforcement of the transmission network in order to address the existing bottlenecks and also increase capacity.

He said the Prestea-Obuasi transmission line, scheduled for completion next month, would relieve the major constraints that restricted the evacuation of power from the Aboandzi Thermal Power Station to the major load centres in Accra and Tema.

Kan-Dapaah said the government was involved in regional projects including the West African Gas Pipeline Project (WAGP) and the West African Power Pool (WAPP) in order to secure a long term source of fuel for the thermal plant.

Yaw Barimah, Minister of Works and Housing said, as much as his ministry would have liked to provide housing for workers, "we are faced with the skyrocketing of building materials, which always make it impossible for us to provide even a bed sitter at a low cost.''

The annual housing requirement is estimated at between 116,000 and 140,000 units but current production fell below expectation. Barimah said in order to beat down the cost of houses the ministry was encouraging the use of local materials in putting up houses.