Engineers of the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) have told citifmonline.com that they are currently working to restore power to major parts of the Central Region that were cut off following a fire outbreak that ravaged one of their substations at Winneba junction on Saturday evening.
[contextly_sidebar id=”i5I9j5SNKoFrO8dyJofMlEcis5TyvvPP”]The fire affected power supply to areas such as Kasoa, Winneba, Swedru, Apam and other surrounding towns and villages in the Region.
Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) District Manager at Apam, Noel Quarshie told Citi News earlier, that “about 7pm [Saturday evening] we saw a bright light in town so we quickly rushed there to see what was happening and we realized the GRIDCO substation was engulfed with fire. We did the necessary arrangements to get the fire service down, to get Tema to switch off the station to allow fire service to quench the fire.”
After various interventions by the Ghana national fire service team in the area, thankfully, the inferno was quenched but the extent of damage to the substation is said to be devastating. The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained.
Speaking to Citi news after touring the affected site on Sunday, the Central Regional Minister, Aquinas Tawiah Quansah said electricity supply to Kasoa has been restored while other areas across the region will normalize by Thursday.
“Is a serious damage, but luckily they have been able to restore the one for Kasoa, because they connected them back to Mallam. Now Swedru is in darkness, Apam is in darkness and Winneba is in darkness. They [engineers] have given us the assurance that by the end of today or tomorrow Winneba should be able to get light and by Thursday Swedru and Apam will be reconnected,” he indicated.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Chief Executive for Effutu, Nii Ephram has told Citi News that the Winneba Divisional police has beefed up security in the area at the night to ensure criminals do not take advantage of the situation.
He said, “If we talk of security I trust my security personnel. The MTTU officer in charge of the municipality and his men and all the patrol team members have been here since last night and with the situation he knows what to do.”
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana