The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Limited has responded to allegations associating the recent most devastating fire outbreak at the Adum Central Market with persistent power outages.
Ing. George Amoah, the Ashanti West Regional General Manager of the ECG said, ‘As a company, we want to wait for the official report of the Ghana National Fire Service.’
He was speaking with JoyNews in an interview to address the allegations raised against the ECG for being the cause of the fire outbreak.
Ing. George Amoah noted that the Adum Central Market Center had a dedicated distribution line known as the Town Hall Feeder with an alternative Distribution line known as Power House 2 and both distribution lines had not recorded any power outage for a long period before the fire outbreak.
According to Ing. Amoah, The Adum Central Business Center was one of the revenue hubs of the ECG, hence, it has a dedicated distribution line to ensure reliable power supply.
“The distribution feeder that serves the enclave is one of the healthiest feeders in the Ashanti West Region and for the past three weeks we’ve not experienced any outage in that enclave,” Ing. Amoah stated.
Additionally, he said that the distribution of quality and reliable power supply in that enclave was one of the topmost priorities of the ECG.
However, despite the efforts made by the ECG to supply reliable power to the customers in the Adum Central Business center, there have been issues of vandalism and theft of transformers and its materials such as cables and switches.
He recalled that some unknown individuals vandalised one of the transformers of the ECG near the old Melcom in the market centre which led to a 48-hour power outage before power was restored.
Again, the recent vandalism and theft of transformers and its materials was recorded two weeks ago near Hello FM where the recent fire outbreak was recorded.
However, Ing. Amoah said power was restored as the stolen items were immediately replaced and the transformer fixed.
Ing. Amoah indicated that prior to the fire outbreak on Friday morning, there was stable power supply on Thursday and the early hours of Friday morning but the company had to curtail power supply to the enclave when the fire started to enable the Ghana National Fire Service do its work and also protect life and property.
Ing. Amoah further indicated that the company has restored power supply to parts of the Central Business Center and will continue to monitor the situation to ensure it is a safe before restoring power supply to the remaining areas.
The ECG General Manager revealed that the company had lost one transformer, five poles and some cables as a result of Friday’s fire outbreak.
Ing. Amoah added added that “as a company we empathize with victims of the devastating fire outbreak”.
Ing. Amoah observed that the buildings within the Adum Central Business Center were old structures with densely populated areas and had a lot of inter-connections with the cable sizes not being the right ones.
He indicated that there have been several visits to the market center to educate traders on LI 2008.
The LI 2008 requires that the services of certified electrical wire professionals should be engaged to ensure that wirings were done properly.
“The wiring of the building is old and a lot of people distribute power to their neighbors illegally with substandard electrical cables. Some of the stores even do not have an earthing system while others had old sockets which posed a serious risk to their safety. We have advised them to engage the services of a certified electrical wiring professional as enshrined in the Li 2008 to conduct an electrical inspection and rewire their shops”, he said
He emphasized that last week Sunday’s outage which affected some parts of greater Kumasi cannot be attributed to the cause of fire outbreak.
“Though some areas recorded a power outage on Sunday, the market center did not experience that because they received power supply from the Ridge Bulk Supply Point (BSP) but the challenge was from the Anwomaso BSP”, he said.
