The Koforidua Polytechnic has been plunged into darkness after the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), cut them off the national power grid.
The Polytechnic owes ECG electricity bills in excess of GHS 790,000.
Mr. Mensah-Livingston, the Registrar of the Polytechnic confirmed this to Citi News.
[contextly_sidebar id=”stEOIIiUbmVVDD8xWXNEHb5pYl2AFu43″]According to him, the ECG in a meeting with the Director of Finance at the institution issued a 24th August deadline date for the payment to be made.
And true to their caution, ECG proceeded to disconnect the school after they failed to pay up.
“This is in spite of directives from cabinet asking ECG not to disconnect power to educational and health institutions because of the critical services they are perceived to provide,” he said.
This is not the first time the institution has been disconnected from the national grid over non-payment of bills.
“The entire polytechnic was disconnected about five months ago, but today they [ECG] only disconnected the administration block leaving out the teaching area” Mr Mensah added.
The registrar indicated that, the polytechnic has tried to levy students to pay for outstanding utility bills but that has also not yielded any results.
He further explained that, if students are allowed to pay for utilities, they will be able to pay all outstanding bills.
The institution has reached out to the Ministry of Education to help resolve the problem but have received no feedback yet.
The Electricity Company of Ghana has been struggling with the collection of bills from institutions for a long time and has on several occasions threatened to sue some of them.
The polytechnic is currently admitting new students and the lack of power has stalled the process.
The Koforidua Polytechnic will become a technical university by September 2016, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Deputy Minister in Charge of Tertiary Education indicated earlier in June.
Meanwhile, the Volta Regional office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has said it will drag state-owned agencies that owe it to court if their debts are not settled.
About 218 high debtor customers owe the ECG approximately 3.6 million Ghana cedis.
According to the ECG, the defaulters are yet to settle all debts despite being served with demand notices after being disconnected.
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By: Kwame Botchway/citifmonline.com/Ghana