The Head of Corporate Communications at Ghana Gas Company, Ernest Owusu Bempah, has dismissed reports in a section of the media alleging that some faulty compressors at the company’s installations at the Takoradi Regulatory and Metering Station (TRMS) are the reasons for the power generation deficits and outages being experienced in the country in recent times.
Mr Owusu Bempah in a press briefing on Tuesday, stated that the power outages currently being experienced in some parts of the country have nothing to do with inefficient supply of gas for production from Ghana Gas.
“Gas is flowing consistently for power production, we are doing more than enough for power generation and we’ve done a lot to make sure that power is stable in the country from our end,” he stated.
“The press statement which sought to blame the power outages to faulty compressors feed in connection with Ghana Gas is not true, and I say that all our compressors are working to ensure that we give VRA the necessary gas for power production and also for the Karpower project we have which gives us about 450KW of power, so Ghana gas as an entity we have been doing what we can consistently for power production,” he added.
According to him, the power outages being experienced are as a result of lack of maintenance of power distribution lines of the Ghana Grid Company Limited and the Electricity Company of Ghana.
“I can state for a fact that there is lack of maintenance on the side of GRIDCo, and let’s get it clear that our power lines that are distributing power around the country are outmoded and and its been there for a very long time,” he stated.
Mr Owusu Bempah made the above assertions speaking at the launch of a reading project dubbed “Turn a page” which aims to inculcate the habit of reading into school children between the ages of 6 to 15 years.
Speaking further at the launch, he opined that literacy project has become necessary following a research conducted by Ghana Education Service (GES) in 2012 which suggested that only 2 percent of children in primary two (2) can read proficiently while 50 percent of the pupils assessed could not pronounce a single English or Ghanaian word correctly, as well as 44 percent of primary pupils could read without understanding what they read, whereas 4 percent could read with little understanding.
“Ghana Gas believes this project will help improve the vocabulary, grammar communication skills and ultimately improve the writing skills of children in the western region and the Ghana gas enclave,” he intimated.
The literacy project will target twenty-seven to thirty thousand pupils from thirty under-resourced basic schools in the Ellembelle District.