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Karpower Company limited has ruled out handing over to government its power ships after its contract expires.

According to Karpower, government as well as all the utility companies do not have the capacity and expertise to maintain the power ship.

Karpowership signed an agreement with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in June 2014 to assist Ghana with its crippling power generation deficit that plunged the country into darkness.

The Turkey-based company has a 10-year power purchase agreement with government to provide Ghana with 450 megawatts of power directly to the country’s electricity grid.

There have been calls for Ghana to consider taking over the powerships after the 10 year contract elapses.

But in a sharp rebuttal, an Executive Director, in charge of Business Development at the Karpower Company limited, Zeynep Harezi, said no one around the world can operate the power ship considering the technology used in building them.

“The best operation for power ships will be done by our ship operational and maintenance crew, the reason why we are able to provide the lowest cost thermal power, thanks to our fuel efficiency and consumption. We are consuming very little of the cheapest fuel available and we are able to maintain that high levels of efficiency due to the stock of spare parts and attention to detail ensuring that nothing goes wrong and our resilient capacity,” she stated.

Zeynep Harezi added, “If Ghana or a utility decides to take over the power ship or maintain it, it will be very difficult for them as for example ordering spare parts could take up to three months to be delivered, so with that in mind we operating the ships to its highest efficiency is much more feasible for Ghana than operating it themselves.”

The Karpower boss also stated that the maintenance could neither be undertaken by any public utility provider in other parts of the world.

“Let me be quick to add that it is true not just for Ghana alone or ECG but it is true for any public utility around the world that they cannot operate the power ships we build as that is why the power generation sector is globally being privatized as the general trend.”