The government has launched two parallel investigations into the fire that damaged the Akosombo substation and caused the most serious disruption ever recorded in Ghana’s power sector, with a technical team tasked to deliver findings within two weeks while security agencies probe possible criminal involvement.
Minister in charge of Energy, John Jinapor announced the investigations on Monday during a media briefing at the Government Accountability Series, saying the country deserved a full and transparent account of what caused the incident and how to prevent a recurrence.
“To get to the root cause of this incident, as minister for the sector, I have constituted a technical team chaired by the venerable Ing. Williams Amuna to conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the incident,” the minister said, adding that the team would focus specifically on the technical aspects of the fire and submit its report within two weeks.
Running concurrently, security agencies are conducting a separate investigation into the incident, looking at questions of possible culpability and criminality. The minister said the government would await the outcomes of both probes before drawing conclusions.
The fire broke out at GRIDCo’s Akosombo switchyard on Thursday April 23, 2026, severely damaging the control room through which power generated at the site was evacuated to the national grid.
The damage left over 1,000 megawatts stranded at Akosombo and caused widespread power disruptions across parts of the country.
Mr Jinapor said the government had been transparent from the outset, noting that the President himself had directed him to be honest with Ghanaians about both the scale of the problem and the steps being taken to address it.
ECG under its management had been publishing regional outage updates in collaboration with the Ministry of Information, and the minister said these communications would be made even more accessible to the public as the situation developed.
“We would not live in denial. When we face challenges, we will tell Ghanaians,” he said, while drawing a clear distinction between the current disruptions and deliberate load shedding, saying the outages were the result of a genuine and unprecedented disaster rather than policy failure.
The minister acknowledged that disasters of this nature were neither entirely predictable nor preventable, even in advanced countries, but said what remained within government’s control was the speed, coordination, honesty and determination of the response.
Two of Akosombo’s generation units have since been restored, with engineers working around the clock on a third unit. The minister said he intended to visit the engineers on site personally that evening to commend and encourage them, describing their commitment as truly remarkable.
Richard Aniagyei, ISD
