Ghana to increase power supply to Burkina Faso

Ghana has agreed to increase its power supply to Burkina Faso from 9.2 megawatts to 100 megawatts by 2018.

The move follows advanced cooperation between the two West African countries to ensure the completion of the Ouagadougou-Bolgatanga Power Interconnection Supply project.

This came to light when the Minister of Energy, Mines and Quarries of Burkina Faso, Mr Alfa Oumar Dissa, paid a courtesy call on his Ghanaian counterpart, Mr Boakye Agyarko, in Accra last Monday.

Agreement

Briefing journalists after the closed-door meeting, Mr Agyarko indicated that the two sides agreed on areas of cooperation including the increased export of power to Burkina Faso, expedition of action on the Buipe-Bolgatanga Petroleum Products Pipeline project at Buipe in the Northern Region, as well as the management of the Bagre Dam.

Touching on the export of energy to Burkina Faso, he said the country had enough generation capacity as compared with its demand, for which reason it could comfortably support Burkina Faso.

“By the end of this year, 12 transformers will be transported to Bolgatanga where 50 megawatts of power will be supplied. There is another transmission line from Obuasi through Kumasi to Bolgatanga which will also carry the additional 50 megawatts to make up the total supply needed,” he said.

He said both sides had agreed on outstanding issues that had to be looked at and the work that ought to be done for the project to be successful.

Mr Agyarko added that the two countries had also agreed to take proactive measures to monitor the trucking of petroleum products between them.

In line with that move, they agreed to put finishing touches to the petroleum pipeline project at Buipe to ensure efficiency and accountability in the transportation of fuel products.

The pipelines, he said, would transport petroleum products — gasoline, diesel and kerosene — through an eight-inch diameter pipeline from Buipe to Bolgatanga and to Burkina Faso.

The project will have remote sensing stations and metering systems along the line to ensure accountability in the transportation of the petroleum products.

Construction of new dam

For his part, Mr Dissa revealed that the Burkinabe government had advanced moves to construct a second dam to curb the perennial flooding from the spillage of the Bagre Dam that had often destroyed farms belonging to Ghanaian farmers.

He said the perennial flooding from the spillage of the dam would soon be a thing of the past.

Mr Dissa observed that the cooperation with Ghana in the supply of power was critical to the development agenda of Burkina Faso, saying a country that had unreliable power would not be able to grow its economy.