By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
The Ashanti Regional Security Council, in partnership with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has issued an ejection warning to encroachers on the premises of electricity installations, promising that their structures would be demolished if they do not on their own volition vacate such places.
In certain situations as is the case at Dagombaline in the Asokore Mampong Municipality, the Security Council is to convene an Emergency Meeting with identifiable key stakeholders before the one-month deadline to ensure an incident-free ejection.
These decisions were informed following a familiarization tour of selected ECG installations in the Greater Kumasi Metropolis by the REGSEC and Management staff of ECG in Ashanti.
The inspection tour team was jointly led by the Chairman of the Ashanti Regional Security Council, REGSEC, Mr. Simon Osei Mensah, who is also the Regional Minister, and the Ashanti Regional Manager of the Electricity Company of Ghana, ECG, David Asamoah Boadi.
The first port of call was the frontage of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi where food vendors and other traders are doing brisk business around the Sub Station.
The team observed that the food vendors, customers and traders are living dangerously close to the transmitter and exposed high voltage live cables.
The REGSEC Chairman drew their attention to the danger associated with where they were doing business.
The team proceeded to Adoato where a private property developer had encroached on the premises of another Electricity Sub Station with a building almost at the lintel level.
The structure is said to be sitting on the main pipe borne distribution line from the Owabi Water Treatment Dam as well as some of the power cables underground and that a damage to any of the distribution lines could negatively affect a greater portion of residents in the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan area.
At the Kumasi Airport Roundabout, the team again observed that a washing bay is being operated very close to high tension electricity distribution lines and they interacted with the operator to draw his attention to the dangers he faces hence he must relocate.
They observed with awe the seriousness of encroachment on high tension cables at Dagombaline in the Asokore Mampong municipality along the stretch of a major drain commonly known as River Peleele.
These squatters are also undertaking activities considered dangerous to power distribution such as burning of scrap while others live in wooden structures directly under the pylons.
Mr. Osei Mensah hinted that the situation at Dagombaline is so serious that REGSEC needed an Emergency with opinion leaders among the squatters to find a peaceful ejection of the people.
It was observed also that a Mosque has been built so close to an ECG Transmitter at Dichemso that exposes the worshippers to greater danger should the transmitter develop any fault.
The team urged ECG to find a mutually peaceful means of addressing the problem.
At the Nana Afia Kobi Ampem Market at Abinkyi, the FREGSEC Chairman gave owners of a provisions store and a drinking spot one day to relocate or they would be forcibly ejected due to the seriousness of the danger they are exposed to from the overhead power cables under which they directly ply their businesses.
The team also visited high tension pylons at Kaase and Dakojom where pile ups of debris from dredging of the nearby drainage system and laterite filling of the land by a private developer have led to a shortened height of the high tension power pylons leaving them dangerous for especially heavy duty transports.
The Ashanti Regional Manager of the ECG, David Asamoah Boadi, explained that the seriousness of the encroachment and human lives necessitated the involvement of REGSEC in finding a peaceful resolution to the situation, which is also to ensure uninterrupted power supply from the ECG.
Chairman of the Ashanti REGSEC, Mr. Simon Osei Mensah, cautioned that if REGSEC does not act immediately to eject the trespassers from the ECG installations, the region could lose both human lives and electricity supply.