Houses which were wired more than 10 years ago will be inspected by certified electrical contractors, beginning from December 2012, to ensure that the wiring had been properly done, the Executive Secretary of the Energy Commission, Dr Alfred Ofosu Ahenkorah, has said. Houses that are yet to be wired will now have to be wired by certified electrical contractors to be engaged by the Energy Commission, starting from December this year. As a prelude to the nationwide exercise, the commission is implementing a programme to certify qualified electrical contractors to undertake the exercise. Speaking at a seminar organised by the Energy Commission to educate journalists on the operations and mandate of the commission in Aburi in the Eastern Region, Dr Ahenkorah said the move was aimed at sanitising the building industry to ensure that only qualified electrical contractors undertook house wiring. He was confident that the implementation exercise would also prevent fire outbreaks which were the result of shoddy work. Earlier this year, a Deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudjeto-Ablakwa, had disclosed that investigation into fire outbreaks in most of the country’s public offices that occurred last year showed that the fires were caused by faulty electrical wiring. According to him a report from the technical committee set up to investigate the cause of fire outbreaks attributed them to electrical faults. Dr Ahenkorah said the commission, in exercising its mandate under the law, would obtain information from the public on the reliability of service providers in the electricity supply industry by using a designated toll free short code number to enable the public to send their complains by SMS text messages. The Head of the Renewable Energy Division of the Energy Commission, Mr Kwabena Otu-Danquah, said the commission had implemented the Ghana Development and Access Project (GDAP)/ World Bank Project on the measurement of wind speed in the Greater Accra, Central and Western regions. He said the GDAP sought to assist the government to improve the operational efficiency of electricity distribution systems and increase access of the population to electricity, while transforming the country into a low-carbon economy through the reduction of greenhouse emissions. He said very soon the commission would install seven wind measuring systems in some selected sites for data collection to begin. He mentioned the areas as Ada, Sege, Senya Beraku, Ekumfi Nakwa and Pumpuni. Mr Otu-Danquah said the commission also implemented the grid-connected solar PV (solar photovoltaic) project to support the installation of grid connected solar systems equipped with reversible meters. He said a preliminary analysis of the grid connected solar PV systems confirmed that the cost of electricity generated by the mechanism was dropping in the country. The Director in Charge of Energy Efficiency and Climate Change, Mr Kofi Agyarko reminded importers of second-hand refrigerators that the ban on their importation and sale would be in force by December 2012.