<<Print>>

A swift intervention by fire officers on duty at the premises of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) prevented a possible destruction to one of the major electricity installations in Tema.

A security guard of GRIDCo spotted smoke emanating from one of the pylons on the company's close circuit television and quickly alerted the fire service department stationed on the company’s premises and they managed to douse the fire.

The actual cause of the fire is under investigation, but preliminary investigations by the police indicated that the fire was set by an unidentified person who intruded the installation.

Complain

The acting Public Relations Officer of the Tema Regional Police Command, Chief Inspector Dede Dzakpasu, told the Daily Graphic that at about 3:40 a.m. of last Thursday, the Chief Technician of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Tema

Regional Office, Mr Isaac Collins Aidoo, accompanied by a colleague, lodged a complaint with the police that someone had set fire to a 33 kilovolt electricity cable connected to a pylon adjacent GRIDCo and close to the Tema Oil Refinery.

The installation, which was fenced with a wire mesh, was intruded by the yet-to-be-identified person or persons.

She said when the police visited the scene, the fire had been doused by fire personnel on GRIDCo’s premises called to the scene by a security guard who spotted smoke emanating from the pylon on the company's CCTV.

Preliminary investigation

Chief Inspector Dzakpasu said initial investigation and examination of the crime scene indicated that the perpetrator(s) had cut part of the wire mesh fence before getting access into the installation to burn the pylon.

According to her, the police saw burnt debris of vehicle tyres at the base of the pylon, an indication that the perpetrator(s) had used a vehicle tyre to set the fire to the pylon.

Chief Inspector Dzakpasu appealed to the public who might have any relevant information on the incident to contact the Tema police.

Recall

The incident is the latest of such installations coming under threats.

In March 2019, one of GRIDCo's towers in Tema collapsed after alleged thieves vandalised the bolts and nuts at Tema along the Volta Smelter transmission site.

That incident, which happened at about 1:30 a.m., saw the power generation systems losing some 180 megawatts of power and plunging some parts of the country in darkness.