President John Dramani Mahama on Thursday, April 30 paid a surprise visit to the GRIDCo Transmission Station in Akosombo after it was hit by a fire disaster recently.
In the company of some engineers and government officials, President Mahama was at the facility to ascertain the extent of damage of last Thursday’s fire and work being done by engineers on the ground.
He expressed gratitude to the workers for their sacrifice in so far getting at least four turbines back in operation.
“You have four of the turbines back on,” he says, “and [the Energy Minister] says that you’re working another miracle and that I’ll get good news soon with the remaining two turbines also coming back on.”
“So I want to thank you very much for what you’ve done, and we encourage you to continue to work.”
He underscored the necessity of the Volta River Authority (VRA) as a state-owned enterprise in the energy sector, pledging more support.
“VRA will continue to be one of the foremost state-owned enterprises. And GRIDCo and VRA, both of you, you are among the foremost. Twins of the same mother, GRIDCo and VRA and we know that you’ll continue to work, and every support government can give you, we’ll continue to give you.”
‘Act of God’
President Mahama considered the fire disaster as “an act of God”, insisting that it will force a total overhaul of equipment in the control room.
“This is an act of God. I mean, who would have expected that the control room would develop this kind of fire? But of course, I hear it’s been there since 1964. So they say an adversity is an opportunity. Because now that this adversity has happened, it gives us an opportunity to replace it with a more modern control room that will serve this Akosompo plant and let it work for more generations yet unborn.”