Tsatsadu Power Generating Station
The Paramount Chief of Alavanyo Traditional Area, Togbega Tsedze Atakora VII, has highly exalted the Akufo-Addo-led government for its unwavering support to the people of Alavanyo since coming into office.
The Chief, who could not hide his delight, put the same in a proverb to assure President Akufo-Addo, through his parliamentary candidate for Hohoe Constituency, who is the Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu, that they would vote for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), come December 7.
Addressing President Akufo-Addo at Alavanyo on Saturday, November, 21, 2020, Togbega Tsedze Atakora VII said: “There is a proverb that the one who feeds you, you don’t bite his fingers. So, if Mr Amewu is feeding us, we won’t bite his fingers. We pray that God guides you in all that you are doing, so that, in the long run, better things than we have today can follow.”
He had earlier highlighted what he described as the peace Alavanyo was enjoying under President Akufo-Addo, and pleaded for continuous commitment towards the peace building process.
“This time, unlike the cat, I sleep with both eyes and both ears closed. And so, we plead that the work for peace building by the Regional House of Chiefs, the Council of Elders, the Peace Council and others is facilitated, so that we can achieve permanent peace, then people who want to sleep on the street can sleep,” he asserted.
Togbega Tsedze Atakora VII continued: “Two things that God has denied me – one of them is that I don’t have a good voice to sing, and when I stand to dance now, your Excellency will say please sit down. Those are the two things God has denied me, else you would have seen the way I would dance to indicate that Alavanyo is very happy to have you here with us, so that we can talk to you directly about the problems that we have here in Alavanyo.”
President Akufo-Addo was in the Volta Region last Saturday, where he began his campaign tours for this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
His first stop was Alavanyo, where he commissioned Ghana’s first micro power generating station, located at Tsatsadu, Alavanyo, in the Hohoe Constituency of the Volta Region.
Describing the ceremony as “a happy day for the people of Alavanyo and myself,” President Akufo-Addo noted that the 45kw Tsatsadu hydro power generating station will “provide power for rapid economic development in Alavanyo.”
The origins of the project date back to 2005, when the Ministry of Energy, under the government of President John Agyekum Kufuor, entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and International Network on Small Hydro Power of China (IN-SHP) to undertake studies geared towards the development of small hydro power potentials in the country.
According to the President, before the project could be operationalised in the twenty-two sites identified, the NPP lost the 2008 elections, and “like many other important initiatives of the Kufuor government, this project was also abandoned.”
Upon his assumption of office in 2017, he told the gathering at Tsatsadu, he directed the Ministry of Energy, together with the Bui Power Authority, to re-develop the hydro power generating stations, including that at Tsatsasu.
Indeed, the Tsatsadu project was initially designed as a 30kw stand-alone system, but was redesigned and upgraded to a 45kw grid-connection system, based on the outcome of the additional studies.
The project was undertaken solely by Ghanaians.
President Akufo-Addo stated that the construction of the power generating station did not have any adverse impact on the environment, adding that since its energy source is green, it will have no carbon emissions.
The President assured the Togbega of Alavanyo that the road leading up to the Tsatsadu Generating Station is “under active development, and will be done,” stressing that “indeed, Alavanyo, it shall be well.”
In commending the Minister for Energy, John-Peter Amewu, who is the NPP’s parliamentary candidate for Hohoe, for his role in helping cement the peace in Alavanyo, President Akufo-Addo stated: “All of this means the time has come for Hohoe to undergo a change, and to come to come to sit on the back of the elephant.”
The President, thus, urged residents of Tsatsadu, Alavanyo, and, indeed, Hohoe to vote massively for him and for John-Peter Amewu, “so we can do more for you.”
