‘Galamsey’ activities destroy electricity equipment
The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) has said the activities of illegal miners are affecting power transmission infrastructure in some parts of the country.
It said the illegal miners (galamseyers) either dug around the base of transmission towers or stole the steel beams used to build transformers for their illegal mining activities.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GRIDCo, Ebenezer Kofi Essienyi, said this when he took histurn at the Ministry of Information’s state of agencies report series in Accra Monday.
According to him, the company had to relocate some of its transmission towers as a result of the encroachment by galamseyers, adding: “This comes at an additional cost to the company, as it leads to the towers collapsing.I don’t know if gold hasstarted forming atthe bases of our towers.”
“These lines are extremely dangerous. When we see the lines and do not see fire on them, we assume they have no purpose. They are dangerous; let us stay off the right of way,” the CEO added.
Preventive measures As part of preventive measures, he said, a right ofway task force had been formed,while the company was also deploying technology to enable the adoption of a predictive and condition-based maintenance system.
He also said his outfit had commenced the reconstruction of outlived legacy lines to guarantee stable power supply in the country, including receiving funding through loans and grants for the replacement of some of the legacy lines which “were built in the 1960s. Some have completely outlived their years and we need to completely reconstruct them”.
Mr Essienyi added that theAmeri Power Plant was being relocated to Kumasi to increase power transfer capability to the middle and the northern parts of the country and eventually to Burkina Faso. He appealed to farmers whose cocoa trees had to be cut to make way for the transmission lines to pass through theirfarmsto cooperate with the company.
source: graphiconline
