He said the move was meant to bring an end to the frequent power outages in the major towns within the next 12 months. The company requires more than $990 million to fully replace some of its existing equipment and upgrade some of them to be able to guarantee uninterrupted power supply; but the managing director is confident of raising the amount, with the support of the government and donor agencies, as well as funds from its internally generated resources, to rectify other anomalies in the system. Mr. Adu-Amankwah said the growth in demand for power in the major towns was between eight and 10 per cent but physical expansion had not kept pace with the phenomenon, thereby resulting in serious overload of the existing facilities.

He said while the project was ongoing, the outages would continue and pleaded with consumers to bear with the company to ensure its successful implementation. He said given the difficulties within the system, an automatic facility had been installed at the Mallam sub-station to ensure that the power went off automatically immediately there were challenges to avoid a total systems collapse. On the probability of tariff increases, he said, "We are not yet there because the support from the government and our intensified debt collection programme are helping us and, therefore, we do not need any increases yet.”Source: Daily Graphic