Tema, Nov. 17, GNA – The Tema South District Office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has appealed to district assemblies to maintain all streetlights in their various districts.
Mr Christopher Apawu, ECG Tema South District Engineer, making the appeal at a business forum organized by the Tema West Municipal Assembly (TWMA), said the failure on the part of district assemblies to maintain the streetlights as mandated by law, often led to loss of revenue to the ECG.
Mr Apawu explained that all streetlights were expected to light up during the night and off during the day, but due to non-maintenance, when the Photostat in them was faulty and not replaced, the lights were left on both at night and daytime.
This, he said caused the company a lot of money and therefore reiterated that the assemblies should take up their responsibilities of maintaining the light, to help the company save some money for logistics and other needed projects.
Mr Apawu said the ECG often had to disconnect the lights when it came to their notice that the streetlights were always on, this he said was done to save power losses.
He also urged the assemblies to wait for approval from the company before going ahead to install new streetlights as he explained, that before they approved such request, they access and calculate the power consumption and distribute it evenly for the transformers to be able to carry the load.
According to him, failure to wait for approval could lead to overloading the transformers, which would result in some power problems including residents experiencing low power voltage.
Touching on provision of light to slum communities, he said it was the policy of the ECG not to connect power to slum communities until a letter was provided from the assemblies by the applicant.
Mr Vincent Blah Quarshie, Works Engineer for Tema West, said the Assembly had a team responsible for the maintenance of streetlights and stated that they were currently doing an assessment on all streetlights in the various electoral areas.
He said they had realized that even though there was nothing like container numbers, ECG used such numbers provided by squatters to supply power to slum communities without verifying from the Assembly.
Mr Quarshie therefore pleaded with the ECG to henceforth verify permits and letters presented to their offices for the request of power to such areas before going ahead to connect them.
GNA