Some cold store operators at the Asafo market in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region are angry about the recent frequent power outages which they say is crippling their businesses.<\/p>\n
They have thus called on the appropriate authorities to address the situation to save their businesses.<\/p>\n
According to Citi News<\/strong> Ashanti Regional correspondent, Hawa Iddrisu, some of the traders complained that \u201cdue to the recent unannounced outages, cartons of fish meant for sale have gone bad and they are forced to discard them on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of them who spoke to Citi News said \u201cwhen the light goes on and off as often as it does, they are unable to freeze our stock and we throw fish away almost every day. We are appealing to the government to help us have stable power supply since it is affecting our work.\u201d<\/p>\n Another one said \u201cwe are losing customers as a result of this situation; the worrying aspect is that you still pay the same electricity bills despite the frequent outages.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve gone for loans for this business and because we are not making any profit we are unable to pay back.\u201d<\/p>\n The recent development is said to be affecting other businesses in the metropolis as well.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the Ashanti Regional Public Relations Officer of the ECG, Erasmus Kyere Baidoo, admitted the erratic power outages but explained that some of the sub-stations caught fire, coupled with the maintenance works on the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah.<\/p>\n \u201cFor something new we\u2019ve been experiencing some burns in our substation here in Kumasi. Because of these challenges, we have to deal with it before we can restore supply. It\u2019s been recurring except that for some time now we\u2019ve been able to put it to rest. Apart from that, almost every evening we have some challenges with GRIDCo and they have been putting us off every evening. So basically it is GRIDCo that have been putting some of our substations off which is causing these outages. There is also a problem with FPSO Nkrumah at Atuabo and that is the reason why we are not getting the supply as we want it.\u201d<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n