The Electricity Company of Ghana has been forced to shed 590 megawatts of power at a time when Ghanaians expect the power crisis in the country to subside.
BUSINESS GUIDE learnt that certain technical problems with a fuse on an N-Gas pipeline in Nigeria caused a drop in gas supply of about 100 million cubic feet, culminating in the sudden decline in supply, but that is yet to be confirmed.
Owing to the development, most parts of Accra, Kumasi and other regional capitals were plunged into darkness.
It has also largely affected gas supply to Tema’s gas enclave, especially the Sunon Asogli Power Plants.
Only one unit of the Asogli power plant is running currently as a result of the situation.
Recently, the power distributor cut about 300 megawatts of power.
The government held an emergency meeting yesterday with major stakeholders in the power sector including VRA, ECG and GRIDCO to discuss how to handle the situation.
Accra will lose 210 megawatts while residents of Kumasi will have their power supply reduced by 120 megawatts.
Tema residents are also to suffer the consequences through the loss of 100 megawatts. ECG will shed 40 megawatts in the Central and Eastern regions.
Power supply to the Western region will be reduced by 60 megawatts.
ECG will reduce power supply to the Volta region by 20 megawatts.
It would be recalled that N-Gas gave the Volta River Authority (VRA) up to February 2016 to settle an outstanding debt of $171.5 million in three tranches.
A threat by N-Gas through WAGPCo, the gas transporter, that gas supply would be cut from Nigeria to Ghana saw VRA paying $9.5 million out of the $182 million debt it owed N-Gas for gas supplied from August 2014 to October, this year. As at July this year, VRA owed banks to the tune of over $1.3 billion.
Some analysts believe there has not been any formal arrangement to pay the debt, except that Power Minister Dr Kwabena Donkor was said to have led a government team to Nigeria to negotiate for some grace period.
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