President John Dramani Mahama has framed the recent fire outbreak at the Akosombo power enclave as a turning point for Ghana’s energy sector, describing the incident as an opportunity to modernise critical infrastructure.
The President made the remarks on Thursday, April 30, during a visit to the Akosombo Dam, where he assessed the extent of damage caused by the fire at a substation operated by the Ghana Grid Company.
The blaze, which disrupted operations at the facility, resulted in the loss of over 1,000 megawatts of power to the national grid, triggering intermittent outages across several parts of the country.
Speaking to engineers and technical staff at the site, President Mahama emphasised the need to turn the setback into long-term progress.
“This presents an opportunity because now that this adversity has happened, it gives us an opportunity to replace it with a more modern control room that will serve this Akosombo Plant and let it work for more generations yet to come,” he said.
He also praised the rapid response by engineers working to restore power, highlighting progress already made in stabilising generation at the facility.
“You have four of the turbines back on, and he says that you’re working another miracle and that I’ll get good news soon with the remaining two turbines also coming back on,” he added.
President Mahama further reaffirmed government support for key energy institutions, stressing the strategic importance of the Volta River Authority and GRIDCo in maintaining national power stability.
“VRA will continue to be one of the foremost state-owned enterprises, and every support the government can give you, we will continue to give you,” he said.
Meanwhile, Minister for Energy, John Jinapor, confirmed that four generation units at the dam have been successfully restored, with the remaining units expected to be back online within the week.
