Barring any last minute hitch, the first power barge to produce 225 megawatts of electricity to allevi­ate the rolling power cuts, is expected to arrive in Ghana on November 10, 2015.

Government has also instructed Kar-Powership to in­crease the capacity of the second barge from the initial 225 megawatts to 400 megawatts.

This means government has increased the power ex­pected from the two barges by an additional 175 megawatts, from the initial 450 megawatts to 625 megawatts.

The first barge, which has been constructed by Kar-Pow­ership, a Turkish company, is expected to start sail from Turkey to Ghana on Sunday, October 25.

The journey from Turkey to Ghana is expected to span two weeks.

Mr Kweku Sersah-Johnson, Head of Public Affairs at the Ministry of Power, told The Finder that when the barge ar­rives, it would take about two weeks to connect it to the na­tional grid.

According to him, ground works at the location where the power barge would dock in Tema is about 85% com­plete.

He noted that by the time the barge arrives in Ghana on November 10, 2015, the place would be ready.

According to Mr Sersah-Johnson, the second barge is ex­pected to be delivered by the end of the first quarter of 2016.

The power barges were originally scheduled to dock at Tema Port in the first quarter of this year.

It was rescheduled to September 2015, but government failed to meet the first two timelines for the arrival of the barges.

The first contractual 225-megawatts power ship was scheduled to be delivered in Ghana in September this year, and the second one was to be subjected to clarification but will be delivered at least 60 days earlier than contracted, Kar-Powership told journalists who went to Turkey to wit­ness progress of work on the barges.