“We just want to use the media to talk to those who are perpetrating this; those who don’t want the good of Ghana to be very careful....beca
“We just want to use the media to talk to those who are perpetrating this; those who don’t want the good of Ghana to be very careful….because we are ready for them. We have the soldiers, of course I am a soldier and I know that we have rules of engagement, but we will not hesitate if arrest is not possible to shoot to kill because Ghana must succeed,” Head of Security for Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), Major (rtd) Lawrence Appiah.
The GRIDCo Head of Security gave this stern warning to perpetrators of would-be acts of sabotage against power lines across the country, especially those in the Tema enclave.
He was reacting to reports of gas pipelines within the Tema enclave that were nearly torched by some unscrupulous people.
Over the weekend, some security men on regular patrol checks along the pipelines believed to transmit fuel to the generating plants within the Tema enclave, discovered that some ignoble persons had packed car tyres over some pipelines and had torched these tyres.
This disturbing development comes on the back of the destruction of some pylons near the head office of state power transmitter GRIDCo, a few weeks ago.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, Major (rtd) Lawrence Appiah disclosed that the pipelines belonged to Cirrus Oil Services, a bulk oil distributor and not GRIDCo.
He intimated that measures have been put in place to ensure that any further attempt on the company’s properties or state facilities in the energy sector by perpetrators will be met with open fire by their security personnel on duty.
Major (rtd) Appiah further revealed that directives have been given to their security personnel to “shoot to kill” anyone with such diabolical intent who will “attempt to sabotage” the operations of the power distributors in the Tema enclave.
“We just want to use the media to talk to those who are perpetrating this; those who don’t want the good of Ghana to be very careful….because we are ready for them. We have the soldiers, of course I am a soldier and I know that we have rules of engagement, but we will not hesitate if arrest is not possible to shoot to kill because Ghana must succeed”, he angrily warned.
According to him, though he cannot be definite about the hidden motives of the person or group of persons involved, whoever sought to carry out that heinous act clearly had no intention of making away with parts
“I can’t tell their motive and the target of the people who attempted to burn the lines but what I do know is that whoever sought to do that had no intention to pick anything away; the intention was to bring Ghana down…those who sell scraps are able to remove some of the parts of the pylon and sell them; so those are to be expected and we will work against them. But for somebody to sit down to cut a whole pylon down so that power will go off, I don’t see their motive if it is not sabotage then I don’t know what they seek”, he said.
Whiles urging other state agencies and private companies in the private sector to intensify their surveillance methods, Major (rtd) Appiah reiterated the pointed that “every economic activity is being driven by this power we are all trying to work hard to make sure we succeed. The affected lines belong to Cirrus Oil Services and the luck we had was that there was no fuel in the lines but water”.
“I urge other security heads of other energy supplying companies to strengthen their surveillance as they can be the next target,” he admonished.
Meanwhile, Head of Health, Security and Safety Environment at Cirrus Oil Services, Daniel Amehoe, believes had the attempted arson been successful, it could have affected power supply to the entire country; “but fortunately, the under constructed tunnel contained water and not petrol or gas“.
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