Dumsor Beckons; VRA Writes GRIDCo Over Gas Shortage

There will be a 15- day interruption in gas supply from February and the month of March, a letter written by the Volta River Authority (VRA) has revealed.

The Authority in the letter further indicated that “power from Ameri Energy will also not be available during that period.”

The VRA has therefore called on managers of the power system to meet to limit supply challenges.

“We shall be grateful if the system control manager will meet with our plant managers to manage the power system during the above stated period to limit any supply challenges,” the statement said.

VRA owed Ghc5 billion – Angry staff lament

The announcement comes days after the newly elected Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of the Volta River Authority, (VRA), Cephas Duse, revealed that the power producer is owed to the tune of five billion Ghana cedis.

This he said is crippling the company’s effort to be financially viable.

He mentioned the mining sector and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) as the major debtors of the company. “As at September 2016, the independent power producers owe the VRA to the tune of five billion Ghana cedis.”

Mr. Duse made this known in an interview with Citi News on the side-lines of a biennial conference at Akuse in the Eastern Region.

The conference among other things was to discuss the issues affecting the company and the way forward. Newly elected executives were sworn into office to steer the affairs of the association in the company.

According to him, “What is happening with the VRA is that, we basically procure LCO gas and these are very expensive inputs; and they are dominated in foreign currency and when you buy these inputs it’s expected that when you sell to the public you get your money back.

And when we don’t get the money back we turn to the bank to get loans to buy again and the cycle continues. We sell to them and they don’t pay,” he lamented.

-Citifmonline

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