Power transmitter, Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), is making efforts to get assistance from neighbouring Ivory Coast to meet the country's power deficit during the Easter period.

During an interview with Accra-based TV3 Network on Wednesday, Systems Control Manager of GRIDCo revealed that emergency measures employed to keep the lights on across the country during the Christmas period would be replicated during the Easter season.

Mr. Frank Otchere told TV3’s Sandra Amarquaye on Wednesday April 1, 2015: “We are trying to get assistance from La Cote d’Ivoire for them to give us some supplementary power supply.

If Ghana's neighbour is able to assist with the provision of the supplementary power, the severe nationwide load shedding exercise would be eased during the Easter period, the GRIDCos official indicated.

“People are going to see a longer duration of power supply than it has been in the past weeks”, said Mr Otchere.

Most residential areas and industrial enclaves are undergoing varied load shedding schedules.

While residential areas endure 24 hours of the power outage with 12 hours supply, industrial enclave go without power for 24 hours every two days.

Mr Otchere, however, stressed that the load shedding exercise may stretch into the third quarter of the year, but it is likely to subside by that period.

He gave the following reasons for a possible Q3 improvement in the power situation that has been a source of frustration for individuals and businesses:

“I believe that as we go into the third quarter, we will still be shedding load but it could come down a bit because we are expecting that TICO would have come on line.

“In addition to that because of the raining season load will go down.”

The current demand of power, according to GRIDCo, is pegged at 2,080 megawatts (MW) but only 1,564 MW is available.

Ghana has also reduced supply to Togo and Benin from 120MW to 50MW.