The affected company whose pipelines were torched by some faceless people last night have indicated their readiness to cover up the pipelines to avert any of such incidents from happening again.
Speaking to the media after touring the facility and accessing the damage caused, the Head of Health, Safety, Security and Environment of Cirrus Oil Services Limited, Daniel Amehoe said it would have been disastrous if the pipelines had fuel in it.
According to him, it beats his imagination that anybody will try to commit such a treasonable and an unpardonable act with the aim of sabotaging and destroying properties without thinking of its consequences.
Giving an account of what happened, Mr Amehoe said “we had a call yesterday around 9am when I was in a meeting that somebody attempted tempering with our pipeline so quickly I sent my men over to have a look at it then they also reported back to me. Our project manager came to have a look at it and then assured them that there’s no fuel in the pipeline at the moment, it’s under construction... If fuel were to be in it and somebody torched it, it would have affected the whole Tema enclave over here in the sense that we have all the pipelines interlinked to Tema Oil Refinery, to the harbour to then moving to APD then to Maame Water so there’s a network of pipelines here so if there were to be any fuel in it, then the person has succeeded. The whole fuel supply, the power enclave would have been in trouble”.
“We are coming to cover our pipe up, make sure that no part is exposed and then we deploy more security on the pipeline and we want other depos to also take precautionary measures”, he further assured.
On April 8, some unknown persons attempted to set fire to the gas pipelines that convey fuel to power plants within the Tema enclave. Two weeks ago also, there was a separate incident where a pylon belonging to GRIDCO was cut.
Reacting to these incidents, the Head of Security for GRIDCO Major Lawrence Appiah (Rtd) stated his outfit will not hesitate to shoot to kill any person who attempts to destroy any property or power installation belonging to the company.
“We all know how the government is working hard to improve power for all of us to enjoy, unfortunately few people are not interested and are trying to do things to bring it down. Of course we are not going to sit down and allow it...We’re telling those who don’t want the good of Ghana to be very careful and be very firm in what they intend to do because we are ready; we have the soldiers and I know that we have the rules of engagement but we’ll not hesitate if arrest is not possible to shoot to kill because Ghana must succeed”, he said.
However, Public Relations Officer for the Energy Ministry, Nana Damoah says police have begun investigating the incident to arrest the culprits.
These incidents come in the wake of the recent power crisis where Ghanaians experienced a nation-wide power outage.
