The Volta River Authority (VRA) says it is in talks with the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo) over payment of arrears owed private Nigerian joint venture capital company N-Gas to prevent cuts in gas supply.

WAPCo has threatened to cut gas supply to the VRA on Friday if the power producer fails to pay outstanding debt of $180 million. WAPCo says the debt is impeding its work.

Head of Corporate Communication at VRA, Sam Fletcher, told Adom FM’s ‘Burning Issues’ Wednesday that the authority is working with its stakeholders to settle the debts owed WAPCo.

“I’m very confident that WAPCo is still supplying us based on our existing arrangement and agreement. We are doing our best to settle them” Sam Fletcher said.

“We at VRA have West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo) as an institution interest at heart and their challenges concerns us. We will settle them to avert any gas supply cut” Sam Fletcher emphasised.

He explains that the VRA is part of WAPCo board hence the gas transporter’s challenges invariably becomes VRA’s challenges as well.

Addressing a press conference Wednesday, Managing Director of WAPCo, Walter Perez stated that the debts must be paid by Friday or they will cut gas supply to Ghana.

Ghana has a deal with Nigeria to receive a contractual 120 million standard cubic feet (mmscf) of gas daily, and the government has in the past held several discussions with Nigeria over the payment of the long-standing debt.

If N-gas goes ahead to cut gas supply to Ghana on Friday, it would exacerbate the power crisis currently confronting the country.