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The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has debunked rumours in the Ashanti Region that the region is being discriminated against in power distribution. According to the company, the Ashanti Region is getting its fair share of available power in the country even though the company cannot claim there are no power outages in the region. The Regional Public Relations Manager of the ECG, Mr Erasmus Kyere Baidoo, in an interview with the Daily Graphic last Friday, explained that the outages being experienced recently were due to some expansion and maintenance works being carried out by ECG and its sister transmission company, the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo). In recent times, there has been public outcry over the persistent power outages in the region, even as distribution in other regions have improved tremendously, since the commissioning of one of the phases of the Bui Hydro Electric power project. They claim the region is going through more prolonged power outages whereas other regions are fairly stable and have had improved power supply. The power outages are hitting industries in Kumasi hard and many wonder how they can counter the stiff competition from industries in the other regions. Many people have accused the ECG of deliberately stifling development in the region through their discrimination tactics. However, Mr Baidoo said �the ECG has nothing sinister against the people of the region.� �I can tell you without any shred of reservation that we are getting our fair share of the national cake and that we are not been discriminated against,� he said. Mr Baidoo explained that the unusually harsh load shedding exercise in the Ashanti Region was partly due to the fact that GRIDCo was going through scheduled outages on the Nkawkaw-Konongo transmission line. �They (GRIDCo) are building a new tower of about 161 Kv transmission line and they are stringing the line conductors on the double circuit towers.� �The programme is such that they are taking the whole of May to do the job and whilst they are working on the line, automatically the Ashanti Region will undergo planned load shedding,� Baidoo said. He stated that the load shedding was different from the national load shedding exercise. Besides the GRIDCo case, he explained that the ECG had to do planned maintenance work at its Ridge main bulk supply point in Kumasi, which work affected the planned programme for the metropolis. Mr Baidoo appealed to residents to bear with the company and gave an assurance that when all the works were completed, especially the GRIDCo one, the region was more likely to have a stable quality and reliable power supply.