Ivory Coast supply Ghana 80mw power to watch football match
The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDco) has announced that Ivory Coast will supply Ghana with 80 megawatts of power to ensure Ghanaians can watch the Black Stars match against Equatorial Guinea on Thursday night.
Advertisement
Mr William Amuna, the Chief Executive of GRIDco, Ghana’s main power supplier made this known.
He was speaking at a stakeholder meeting on the energy sector organised by the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) on Wednesday.
Ghana and Ivory Coast have a power exchange arrangement.
Ghana faces hosts Equatorial Guinea in the second semi-final of the African Cup of Nations. The winner will play Ivory Coast in the final on Sunday February 8, 2015.
We are not buying power from Ivory Coast
Providing a clarification on media reports that said Ghana was going to purchase power from Ivory Coast for Thursday night's football match, the Head of Corporate Affairs and Director of Communications at the Volta River Authority (VRA), Mr Sam Fletcher said it was not an issue of “carrying money to go and buy power from Ivory Coast.”
He described it as “bad reportage,” he told Accra-based radio station, Starr FM.
Rather he explained that Ivory Coast comes to the aid of Ghana at certain times when power was needed and Ghana also goes to their aid when they need power.
“What happens at the end of the day or month or year is that, there is reconciliation and we see who gave more and who gave less so that we can balance through a clearing house.”
“It could be that Ghana gets money out of it or Ivory Coast gets money out of it.”
This according to Mr Fletcher was not a new arrangement and that it has been there all this while.
“I remember in 2012, Ivory Coast passed on about 100mw to us during the general elections. There are times in the past that Ghana has had to give power to Ivory Coast. Every now and then they do. I remember during the World Cup, we had about 60 or so megawatts from them.
So it is an arrangement that is already there, this is nothing new. I think what is making it sound new is that yesterday at the stakeholders meeting, Chief Executive of GRIDco… mentioned it“
“I think the reporting really has been quite misleading that he has said that Ghana is carrying money to go and buy that, I mean lets be truthful here, it is bad reporting,” Mr Fletcher said.