The Member of Parliament for Garu, Dr. Thomas Anaba, has expressed grave concern over persistent power fluctuations affecting communities in the Garu District and adjoining areas, including Tempane and Napanduri, in the Upper East Region.
Raising the issue on the floor of Parliament, Dr. Anaba said the erratic electricity supply has become a major source of frustration for residents, disrupting economic activities.
“I rise to ask the Minister for Energy and Green Transition the measures the Ministry is taking to resolve the rampant power fluctuation, low current and frequent interruption of power supply to Garu and adjoining districts like Tempane and Napanduri.”
The Energy Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor, who appeared before Parliament to respond to questions from members, acknowledged the challenges faced by the affected districts. He attributed the problem to technical limitations within the existing power distribution infrastructure in the area.
“For some years now, the areas that my honourable colleague has mentioned have suffered some significant level of interruption of power, and Mr. Speaker, it’s due to one main factor. The line that he’s talking about is a 600-kilometre line, 600 kilometres. And like I said, if you are serving power on such a line over 600 kilometres with 402 distribution transformers, it traverses five districts, and the districts.” The Minister said.
Jinapor revealed that government has approved plans to construct a new switching station at Gambaga to improve power reliability and stability in the wider North East and Upper East power corridors.
“We are working to put in a new switching station at Gambaga to provide independent feeders for Bunkrugu, for Gambaga and Garu, with the new source of supply from the Zebilla bulk power supply point.”
“In the interim, what we are doing is that we’ve stationed men there to continue to work on these transformers. But the solution is to put this feeder that we are talking about. We are going through the process. Once we put that feeder, we’ll see significant improvement in the supply and delivery of power.” He added.
Dr. Anaba, however, pressed further, seeking clarification on when the proposed interventions would take effect, given the urgency of the situation.
In his response, the Energy Minister indicated that while some preparatory actions were underway, full implementation of the measures has been scheduled for the 2026 fiscal year under the Ministry’s energy infrastructure expansion programme.
“We’ve outlined some few short-term measures. Construction of an eight-kilometre line, network reconfiguration, creating of a bypass, installation of auto-reclosers to provide fault segregation. And all this, we intend to do them in the 2026 fiscal year.” Jinapor added.
Dr. Anaba urged the Ministry to expedite the process to bring relief to affected communities, stressing that reliable power supply is essential for economic growth and improved living standards.
Source: Mike FM.
