Ghana’s Minister for Energy and top officials of Volta River Authority (VRA), managers of the Akosombo and Kpong Hydroelectric Power Dams will, on Wednesday, November 8, 2023, appear in Ghana’s Parliament to brief the House on the Akosombo Dam spillage and respond to questions from the legislators.
The state-owned power generation company, VRA, on September 15, 2023, commenced controlled spillage of the Akosombo Dam due to high inflows into the dam.
The spillage, however, resulted in flooding of some communities downstream, displacing thousands of people with some houses submerged.
As part of its humanitarian efforts, the VRA set aside millions of Ghana cedis to provide relief items to ease the burden of the victims.
Aside from VRA, both public and private institutions and individuals have made substantial donations of relief items to victims, with some radio and television stations still soliciting support for them.
Last week, VRA announced that it had ended the spillage after its monitoring of the situation showed that inflows into the dam had reduced drastically.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament, the Minister for Energy, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, assured that his outfit would provide the necessary accountability to the citizenry.
“Even though VRA is under the Ministry of Energy, we take responsibility. It is a national disaster, an emergency. It is not only affecting people in the South. I would have requested even more time, but since this house also needs to be informed about what is going on and the government’s response activities, I am not the lead government agency.
“There is an inter-ministerial advisory team, but we will take responsibility and come to inform you about what VRA has done and hasn’t done once we have completed everything… And I do pledge that if it is next week Wednesday, I will be here with VRA,” he stated.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
