The Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional Area, Naba Baba Salifu Atamale Lemyaarum, has made a passionate appeal to President John Dramani Mahama to accelerate the development of a solar farm in Bongo, as residents of the Upper East Region continue to grapple with persistent and debilitating power fluctuations.
The Chief made the call during an exclusive interview with Ngamegbulamm Chidozie Stephen of Apexnewsgh on Wednesday, using the platform to draw urgent attention to an electricity crisis that he says has gone on for far too long.
For the people of the Upper East Region, the power situation has become a source of daily anguish. According to Naba Atamale Lemyaarum, residents have endured at least two weeks of erratic power supply, marked by constant fluctuations and outages that have disrupted livelihoods and daily life.
The situation reached a troubling low just days before the interview, when the community spent an entire night without electricity. The following morning brought an alarming explanation: a substation had caught fire.
“The load on our substation is too much,” the Paramount Chief said plainly, pointing to an overstretched power infrastructure that he believes is at the root of the region’s recurring electricity woes.
Rather than simply lamenting the problem, Naba Atamale Lemyaarum offered a concrete solution, one that, in his view, has been sitting idle for over a decade.
He called for a greater embrace of solar energy, arguing that the Upper East Region’s abundant sunshine is a resource that is being squandered. In his vision, solar power would serve domestic needs, while hydropower is preserved for more energy-intensive industrial uses such as factories and welding.
“Solar energy will augment the hydropower,” he said. “With hydropower, we can use it for factories, welding and all that. But domestically, it will depend on solar power.”
Central to the Chief’s appeal is a project that was announced with great fanfare more than a decade ago. In 2014, the Volta River Authority (VRA) acquired land in Bongo for the construction of a solar farm
one that was described at the time as potentially the second largest solar farm in the whole of West Africa.
Yet, years on, the project remains unfinished. While the Paramount Chief acknowledged that some work has been done, he expressed frustration at the pace of progress, describing implementation as “very slow.”
It is against this backdrop that he directed his appeal to the President — a leader he spoke of with genuine admiration.
“He is a man of wisdom and charisma, who is seeking to get the welfare of the people of this country,” Naba Atamale Lemyaarum said.
But admiration, he made clear, does not diminish the urgency of the request. He pleaded with the President to direct the VRA to immediately prioritise the completion of the Bongo solar farm, arguing that doing so would provide the critical backup needed to end the cycle of power crises plaguing the region.
The stakes of the power crisis extend beyond inconvenience. The Upper East Region is currently experiencing intense heat, and the combination of soaring temperatures and unreliable electricity, which limits access to fans and cooling, has compounded public health concerns, particularly around the risk of meningitis, a disease the region has historically been vulnerable to.
For Naba Atamale Lemyaarum, the message to Accra is simple: the people of the Upper East Region cannot afford to wait much longer. The land is there, the sun is there, and the need has never been more pressing. What is required now is the political will to act.
Source: Apexnewsgh.com