President John Dramani Mahama has commended engineers and staff of the Volta River Authority (VRA) and the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) for their swift response following a fire outbreak at the control room of the Akosombo Hydroelectric Plant.
Speaking during a working visit to Akosombo, the President described the incident as unfortunate but praised the technical competence and resilience of the teams working to restore operations.
“We heard about the sad event, the fire outbreak in your control room. And of course, Ghanaians have felt the impact of what happened,” he said.
He noted that the situation, though disruptive, was being handled by highly skilled personnel, expressing confidence in their ability to restore full operations.
“VRA has been one of the best organised state-owned enterprises. I am not surprised that you have the kind of quality of human resource to ameliorate what happened,” he stated.
President Mahama also expressed surprise at the speed of recovery efforts, especially the partial restoration of generating units.
“When I heard that our engineers say they are going to find a way of bringing it back on, I was not surprised because I know VRA has some of the best personnel you can ever get anywhere in the world,” he added.
He confirmed that four turbines had already been restored, with efforts ongoing to bring the remaining two back into operation.
According to him, government is closely monitoring the situation through the Energy Ministry.
The President described it as an unfortunate but transformative moment.
“This is an act of God. Who would have expected that the control room would develop this kind of fire?” he said, noting that the affected system had been in operation since 1964.
He added that the incident presents an opportunity for modernization.
“They say an adversity is an opportunity. Now that this has happened, it gives us an opportunity to replace it with a more modern control room that will serve this plant for generations yet unborn.”
President Mahama assured management and staff of continued government support for VRA and GRIDCo, describing both institutions as critical pillars of Ghana’s energy sector.
“VRA and GRIDCo are among the foremost state-owned enterprises. We will continue to support you in every way government can,” he said, urging workers to maintain their commitment to restoring full power supply.
The visit follows a fire outbreak at the Akosombo GRIDCo substation which temporarily disrupted operations and affected power generation.
Engineers have since been working around the clock to stabilize the system and restore all generating units.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh
