VRA Senior Staff demo against proposed merger bill before parliament

 Senior staff of the Volta River Authority (VRA) yesterday stormed Parliament, to demand the immediate withdrawal of bills proposing a merger between the VRA and Bui Power Authority.

This protest follows assurances from the Minister of State at the Energy Min­istry, Herbert Krapah, that the govern­ment would no longer pursue the bills in Parliament.

According to the staff, the proposed merger is a veiled attempt to privatise the assets of both VRA and Bui Power Authority.

Although the bills are yet to be officially laid before Parliament, the staff insist they must be withdrawn entirely.

Briefing the press in Parliament the chairman of the VRA Senior Staff Asso­ciation, Theophilus Tetteh Ahia, expressed concerns with the proposed energy bills which are yet to be laid in Parliament.

He noted that they have submitted peti­tions to the President, the Vice President, the Chief of Staff, and the Speaker of Parliament and shared copies with all 275 Members of Parliament to reject the bill.

He stressed the association’s opposition to the merger, arguing that VRA is effi­cient, reliable, and produces the cheapest electricity in the country.

“Our demand is very simple. What we are saying is that the Volta River Authority is very efficient, it’s reliable and the power from the Volta River Authority generation plant are the cheapest in this country.

“Therefore, we are asking that the bills brought before the Parliament should be rejected by the honourable Members of this Parliament that it is not going to inure to the benefit of the people of this country,” he said.

Mr Ahia stressed that VRA is a national security asset and that it is the only institu­tion that protects the economy and energy security of this country.

“Therefore, the attempt to merge the Volta River Authority hydro and that of the Bui Power Authority – separation of the VRA thermal asset and creation of thermal power authority and in virtual field to private investors and some faceless politicians is not in the best interest of this country,” he argued.

The chairman of the VRA Senior Staff Association warned that the merger would exacerbate existing challenges within the energy sector, citing the debt owed by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to VRA.

“As you are all aware, the ECG is facing challenges, it is not able to make payments to all the energy fields that they receive from the generators. As we speak today, ECG’s debt to the VRA is over GH¢2 billion.

“That of the Independent Power Pro­ducers (IPPs) is over 1.5 billion dollars. How can we achieve the objective as espoused in the bills that we are bringing efficiency, we are going to reduce the cost of electricity to the people of this country and also to reduce government financing of this sector,” he said.

He further alleged that the real objec­tive of the bills is to facilitate the sale of VRA’s thermal assets to private individuals.

Mr Ahia also highlighted the growing influence of IPPs in Ghana’s energy sec­tor, stating; “Currently, I can tell you that the IPPs in this country produce about over 50 per cent of our energy needs of these states. I don’t know how many of you have heard that SunonAsogli has shut down.

“They have taken over 560 megawatts of electricity from our national grid. It means that they have taken the country to task and this is going to impact negatively on our economy.”

Source: myjoyonline.com

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