The much touted power barge from Turkey, which is expected to produce 225 megawatts of electricity, has finally arrived in Ghana's territorial waters and it is expected to be in Tema by 2pm today.
The power ship, built by Karpowership – which is supposed to argument the erratic power supply – was billed to arrive in August but that was not to be and later rescheduled for September, then October.
But Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), which is providing the transmission lines for the power ship, said it expected the facility in late November to start generating power in December.
When the vessel finally docks in Tema, another vessel is also expected to dock close to it to supply it with fuel. This vessel will be fuelling the barge until a fuel pump is connected to it.
Karpowership had test-fired it and claimed that everything was functioning efficiently before sending it to Ghana.
The barge entered the Ghanaian waters on Thursday at exactly 0100hrs from the port of Abidjan.
The Ghana Navy Ship (GNS) Blika, under the command of Naval Lt. Gafaru Wumbei, sailed from the Sekondi Naval Base Thursday evening to the Ivory Coast border to meet the power barge.
Blika then escorted the barge to Winneba where GNS Chemle from the Eastern Naval Command took over and is escorting it to Tema.
A source at the Public Relations Directorate of the 2nd Garrison in the Western Region indicated that the barge was towed from Turkey by a vessel known as Pacific Raider and closely escorted by another one called Rachael J.
Paying For Fuelling
Meanwhile, the Power Ministry says consumers will be responsible for paying for power from the barge - implying that electricity tariff would be adjusted upward.
Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor, told Joy Fm that government would not play any role in paying for the services of the barge.
'The payment will be done by the end-user. It will not be done by the government,' he stated.
He said government would only 'assist the process to ensure that they [Karpower] have heavy fuel oil,' to generate power.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi
Caption: The power barge at the Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire border
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