VRA Pays GH¢24,105 For Aboadze Gods

The Volta River Authority (VRA), operators of the Aboadze Thermal Power Station in the Western Region, on Wednesday presented a cheque of GH¢24,105 to chiefs of three communities in the region for the construction of a shrine for the river god in the area.

The communities include Aboadze, Abuesi and Dwomo – all in the Shama district.

The chiefs and elders of the three communities, who own the lands on which the Aboadze Thermal Plant is built, claimed that the T3 power plant generators would never produce power again until the gods in the area had been pacified.

In 1994, government acquired 420 acres of land owned by the three chiefs for the construction of the T1, T2 and T3 projects.

The T3 combined cycle plant is a $256-million power generation project funded by the Canadian government and managed by the VRA. It uses both light crude oil and gas for power generation.

The T1 and T2 plants of the Aboadze Thermal Station are currently generating 340 megawatts of power, while the T3 is expected to generate 132 megawatts at full capacity.

Barely two months after President John Mahama inaugurated the T3 facility, it was shut down due to a fault.

The VRA said the T3 needed re-engineering and re-modification. But the traditional rulers insisted that the VRA could bring all the best engineers in the world, but the machine would never work until the rites had been performed.

The chiefs claimed that the gods contributed to the non-performance of the Thermal Plant.

They indicated that although commitment fees were paid for the land, the government did not perform the necessary rituals.

“We have a god over there; and that area there is a very big stream so after they constructed their T3 and the president came to inaugurate it, two months later the whole thing went off,' the elders claimed.

“We are saying that T3 is not working because VRA did not perform the rites and the gods are angry,” they explained.

They revealed that the rites would involve a sheep, a goat and a well-decorated house with running water.

The chiefs also demanded immediate payment of compensation for the lands which government acquired for the project before the reversal of the spell the gods had invoked on the operations of VRA at Aboadze.

VRA heeded the call by the chiefs and presented the cheque to them to purchase the items for the pacification ceremony.

The company also presented an additional cheque of GH¢200,000 as part payment of the cost of the land acquired for the project.

The stool secretary, John Kingsley Arthur, received the cheque on behalf of the chiefs and elders of the three communities.

From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi