Government has been asked to exempt communities in which power generating plants are situated from the ongoing load shedding exercise.
The request was made by the Constituency chairman of the New Patriotic Party for Shama in the Western Region, Joseph Amoah.
[contextly_sidebar id=”VvECTp29pNq8NeDLfisMBKX5tKNmoGxZ”]According to him, exempting those communities from the exercise will form part of the company’s corporate social responsibility to the town.
He says “every company needs to have corporate social responsibility. It could be development projects. In our case they are producing power, so we think we should be exempted [from the ongoing load shedding exercise] so to speak.”
The Shama district has been described by some industry players as the power house of Ghana. The Aboadze Thermal plant is in the area.
But the erratic power supply in the area has angered residents.
Irate youth from Aboadze and its surrounding communities ahead protested against the managers of the Aboadze Thermal Plant ahead of the 2012 general elections.
“The situation is very bad today. The 12 hours power, 24 hours power cut mantra by the power managers was a fiasco. It could go beyond 48 hours in this district. It is the small businesses around Ntwaaban, Shama and Aboadze [the commercial towns for the district] that are collapsing”. Mr. Joseph Amoah fumed.
Mr. Amoah, who is a former DCE for the Shama district concluded that “it is on the fact that the people around this area were affected one way or the other; talk of environmental issues, the use of farmlands for the project and that fact that some people had to be relocated are the basis for which the people here are clamoring for this exemption.”
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By: Obrempong Yaw Ampofo/citifmonline.com/Ghana