According to the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), several areas of the country’s electricity transmission infrastructure are being harmed by unlicensed miners’ activities.
It claimed that the illegal miners (galamseyers) stole the steel beams needed to construct transformers for their illegal mining operations or dug around the bases of transmission towers.
This was said by Ebenezer Kofi Essienyi, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GRIDCo, during his turn at the Monday state of agencies reports series in Accra.
He said that because of the invasion of galamseyers, the company was forced to move some of its transmission towers, adding: “The corporation incurs additional costs as a result of the towers falling as a result of this.
I’m unsure if gold has begun to form at the bases of our towers.
These lines are incredibly risky.
We assume the lines serve no use when we see them but do not see any flames on them.
They pose a threat, so let’s remain off the sidewalk “The CEO continued.
Preventative actions
A right-of-way task force had been established as part of preventive measures, he added, and the business was also using technology to make it possible to adopt a predictive and condition-based maintenance system.
He added that his organization has started to replace some of the legacy lines that had reached the end of their useful lives in order to provide a steady supply of electricity throughout the nation “constructed in the 1960s.
Some of them need to be totally rebuilt because they have outlived their useful lives “.
The Ameri Power Plant is being moved to Kumasi, Mr. Essienyi continued, to improve power transfer capabilities to the country’s central and northern regions, and eventually to Burkina Faso.
He urged farmers who had their cocoa trees cut down so that transmission wires could travel through their property to work with the corporation.