President John Dramani Mahama has said the recent fire outbreak at the Akosombo Dam enclave provides Ghana with the opportunity to upgrade and modernise power infrastructure.
Speaking on Thursday, April 30, after visiting the Akosombo Dam to assess the impact of the incident, President Mahama stated, “This presents an opportunity because now that this adversity has happened, it gives us an opportunity to replace it with a more modern control room that will serve this Akosombo Plant and let it work for more generations yet to come”.
President Mahama also commended technical teams for restoring operations, citing the progress that has already been made in stabilising power generation.
He added, “You have four of the turbines back on, and he says that you’re working another miracle and that I’ll get good news soon with the remaining two turbines also coming back on”.
“VRA will continue to be one of the foremost state-owned enterprises, and every support the government can give you, we will continue to give you,” he said.
On Thursday, April 23, the fire incident reportedly occurred at 2:01 p.m. when the substation, a vital installation within Ghana’s electricity transmission network, was suddenly engulfed by flames.
Meanwhile, Energy Minister John Abdulai Jinapor has announced that the Akosombo, fourth unit, has been successfully brought into operation, which will boost Ghana’s power generation.
According to the Energy Minister, the additional unit at the Akosombo Dam has been successfully restored to boost operation.
In a brief update on Tuesday night, John Abdulai Jinapor disclosed that “at 9:09 pm, the fourth unit at Akosombo Dam was successfully brought into operation,” describing it as “an encouraging step that strengthens power generation.”
Earlier, the Ministry of Energy and Green Transition spokesperson, Richmond Rockson, revealed that the Akosombo Dam has been completely shut down.
According to Richmond Rockson, the development follows the fire outbreak at the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) substation at Akosombo.
John Abdulai Jinapor highlighted that the fire caused massive damage to critical infrastructure at the substation, explaining that the mage disrupted operations and forced authorities to temporarily shut down the Akosombo Dam.
Speaking in an interview with Bernard Avle on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, April 27, the Energy Ministry spokesperson, Richmond Rockson, explained, “The switch yard, which is at the Akosombo Substation, is completely burnt down and it is not salvageable. The primary control room for the switch yard is completely gone. It was even difficult for us to walk there when we got there to assess the situation.
“And when that happened, we had to shut the Akosombo Dam completely, and so that is what caused the outages in many parts of the country as we are seeing. Because Akosombo is a major component when it comes to our power generation.”
See the post below:
President John Dramani Mahama has visited the Akosombo Dam to inspect the fire-damaged Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) substation, which knocked over 1,000 megawatts of power off the national grid.
— #TV3GH (@tv3_ghana) April 30, 2026
During the visit, President Mahama inspected ongoing restoration works and commended… pic.twitter.com/CWnmCrVTvm