The Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU), has lashed out at the U.S. embassy for supporting Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko’s claims that the Embassy has not paid its electricity bills for more than two years.
The Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko had earlier revealed that American Embassy’s 160 facilities in Ghana had not been billed for two years , adding that the Embassy had been asking for pre-paid meters for sometime now.
[contextly_sidebar id=”y3c9Uw10r2JU9u8pAEhrZgqA1KSbTWWS”]“I had a discussion with the managing director. American Embassy has 160 facilities in Ghana. They have not been billed for two years. So they went to ECG and said ‘look, we owe you money. Bring us a bill. Bring us pre-paid meters. We will use it for one year, and whenever we use, we will multiply it by 3 and give it to you. Up to now, the ECG hasn’t been able to do that,” the Energy Minister said.
The US Embassy in a series of tweets subsequently confirmed this, saying the United States Embassy had been pursuing the Electricity Company of Ghana for two years to secure the bills.
“The U.S. Embassy in Ghana has not refused to pay any electricity bills. We have been asking for official bills for embassy-managed facilities for more than 2 years so we can issue correct payments. The embassy has set aside funds for electricity, and we will continue to work with the ECG to get correct bills so we can pay,” the Embassy clarified.
But speaking to Citi News’ Franklin Badu Jnr, the General Secretary for PUWU Michael Adumattah Nyantakyi argued that the Embassy had made up-to-date payments for all its installations.
Describing the statement as unfortunate, the union said the embassy had been dishonest to the public.
“It is not accurate for them to say that they are not receiving bills and they are not paying. If they were not receiving bills , how would they have paid their bills as at February 2017. Whoever put that statement out perhaps did not check with their scheduling officer…,” he said.
ECG workers claim embassy not owing
This is the second time PUWU has insisted the US Embassy is not owing ECG.
The initial confirmation came in the form of a statement which stated among others that the US Embassy had fulfilled its financial obligations as far as the payment of bills is concerned.
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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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