Government to replace grid-powered streetlights with solar – Roads Minister

The Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwame Agbodza, has announced that government has taken a decision to replace all conventional, grid-powered streetlights with solar-powered systems across the country.

According to the Minister, the move is aimed at improving reliability, as solar streetlights operate independently, so a fault on one will not affect others.

Speaking during an inspection, Mr. Agbodza said all agencies undertaking replacements or new streetlight projects have been directed to stop using main grid-powered lights. He noted that the Ministry of Energy, led by Hon. John Jinapor, is leading the nationwide rollout.

"Anytime we need to replace any streetlight, don't go ahead and do the wiring, just get to your agency head in Accra and then they will work with the Ministry of Energy to replace them with solar ones," he said.

The Minister also clarified the recent failure of traffic lights at the Tema end of the motorway. He explained that the outage, which many attributed to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), was actually caused by the removal of underground cables.

"Not too long ago the traffic lights at the end of the motorway went off and everybody was crying how come the lights are off. The easiest thing to do is to blame ECG. It turns out it has nothing to do with ECG, some discounts... went and removed all the cables underground and the thing went off," he stated.

He said government will now have to pay a new contractor to completely rewire the affected traffic lights.