A Deputy Minister of Energy, Herbert Krapa, has urged owners of facilities that are 10 years plus to engage the services of certified inspectors to check the electrical wiring of their facilities to ascertain their condition and recommend remedial action if need be.
Mr Krapa said doing this, even at a financial cost, would ensure that deficiencies that may have occurred over the period would have been corrected to avert any disaster.
“Sometimes, a few hundreds of cedis can save you millions more. In any case, the utilities will not supply your facility with a meter if you did not use the services of a certified electrician for your wiring,” MrKrapa said.
He was speaking at the 10-year anniversary launch of the Energy Commission’s Electrical Wiring Programme in Accra yesterday.
On the theme “Celebrating a Decade of Regulating the Electrical Wiring Industry in Ghana”, the programme is in conformity with the Ghana Electrical Wiring Regulation 2011, (LI2008) in response to the spate of electrical fire that occur in the country.
The objective of the programme is to ensure that only qualified and certified professionals engage in electrical wiring and installation works, to well-defined standards that would promote the safety of persons and property.
MrKrapa said until the coming into force of the programme, the electrical wiring industry was largely perceived as informal and thought to be full of unqualified practitioners; a perception he said undermined public trust and exposed all of “us” to the dangers of substandard wiring in homes and workplaces.
“The implementation of the Electrical Wiring Regulation has increased professionalism in the practice of electrical wiring by electricians, increased the use of Ghana Standards Authority approved electrical cables and accessories, and decreased the spate of fires associated with bad wiring, and because of this many today feel safe in their homes.
“The days of practitioners using crude methods to test their own work, due to expensive electrical wiring test instruments are fast fading,” he observed and assured that government would continue to provide the needed leadership to ensure the space became safer.
The Board Chairman of the Commission, Professor Ebenezer OduroOwusu, on his part said his outfit would in the “next few years” outline measures to improve the implementation of the Electrical Wiring Regulation in the country.
The measures, he itemised would include developing standards and codes to facilitate the promotion and use of electrical vehicles in Ghana, increase collaboration with the National Insurance Commission to ensure that facilities wired by certified practitioners attract lower premiums since their risk factors would have been reduced.
Other measures would include the revision of the Electrical Wiring Code to facilitate enhanced electrical wiring practice, enforcement of regulations and increased publicity on the regulations implementation and enforcement efforts.
President of the Ghana Electrical Contractors Association, Awal Mohammed, urged that government jobs be evenly distributed to avoid the lumping of contracts to profit-oriented businessmen who hire unqualified persons and inferior materials to execute the work.
“It is important we award jobs to qualified people because when we do, the jobs would be executed properly to ensure safer buildings,” Mr Mohammed stated.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
