Employees of the Volta River Authority (VRA), say the proposed sale of its thermal plants by government defies modern business logic and can’t address the problems of the power producer.
Addressing the media today [Tuesday], Chairman of the Senior Staff of VRA, Cephas Duse said the current challenges faced by the state power producer is as a result of bad deals with independent power producers, which has been allowed by successive governments.
[contextly_sidebar id=”DiXoqbfHldQGnOnX4I51tiEEw0qEXTm3″]”For example, we buy power from AMERI at 15 cents and we sell to ECG at 5 cents,” he noted, adding that this is done in the interest of the nation because the government says they cannot sell the power to Ghanaians at 15 cents.
“…As a result of its [Government’s] bad arrangement with AMERI for example, VRA has incurred an avoidable loss of $218 million within the first 18 months, from January 2016 to July 2017. On the average, VRA incurs a loss of $11.5 million and this arrangement is supposed to be with us for five years.”
VRA also reportedly owes the banks to the tune of GHc 4.4 billion.
Despite these challenges, Mr. Duse said the Authority was doing its best to live up to its mandate of providing the people of Ghana with affordable power.
“I urge those in the Ministry of Energy and Finance Ministry to stop micro-managing VRA and allow the governance structures to work… What VRA needs at this material moment is a board and the debts in the power sector cleared to make VRA’s books look good,” he said.
Stop the sale of thermal plants or face our anger – VRA Senior staff
These workers are joining the Senior Staff of the VRA and the VRA’s division of Public Services Workers Union (PSWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), who have petitioned government, asking for the withdrawal of the public advertisement seeking to engage the services of a Transaction Adviser, to sell specified thermal plants of the company.
The workers in a resolution reached at the end of a meeting on August 25, 2017, forwarded their demands to the Ministers of Energy, Employment and Labour Relations, Finance and the National Security Minister.
They gave government 14-days to meet their demands or risk an industrial action.
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By: Anas Seidu/citifmonline.com/Ghana