<<Print>>

President John Dramani Mahama who has been touring power facilities in recent days in the wake of the ‘dumsor’ challenges was at the Akosombo Dam in the Eastern region on Thursday afternoon.
The visit was to enable the President see the challenges that the hydro-electric power facility was facing.

After inspecting facilities at the dam, the President said it was obvious that the water level was low as a result of a few years of less than average rainfall and asked Ghanaians to “pray”.

The president said the water in the lake was just five feet above the minimum operating level  at the dam.

“I will like the citizens of Ghana to conserve power.  If you are leaving the house or leaving the office, switch off your air condition, don’t leave lights on, switch off your television set if you are not watching it so that we can conserve more power and be able to build up the resources that we have.

Two years of less-than-average rainfall had brought the water level of the dam very low.

The current water level is 245.16 ft, just 5 feet 16 inches above the minimum operating level of 240 feet.

Four out of the six turbines are running, and the dam is generating 558.9 megawatts of power from the installed capacity of 1.200 megawatts.

Divine intervention

Apparently not enthused about the situation at Akosombo, the President said Ghanaians should also seek divine intervention to bring the dam to normal life.

Mr Mahama re-emphasised the need for the country to make thermal the main source of power while managing the hydro resources as supplementary and backup.

"We must also conserve more of our hydro to give to businesses and industry so that we can lower power rates for businesses and industry while residential sites pay more so that we can create more jobs," he said.

Two days ago, the President was at the Tema power enclave where he visited the Sunon Asogli Power Plant, the Tema Cenit Thermal Plant and the Kpone Thermal Power Plant (KTPP).