The Minister Of Energy, Emmanuel Boakye Ayarko, has expressed shock at the growing debt stock of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) which appears to be worsening by the day due to its faulty metering system and avoidable employee recklessness.<\/p>\n
Speaking to a group of journalists and officials of Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) after the inauguration of a 7-member ECG PSP Stakeholders\u2019 Committee in Accra, the minister said he was shocked that ECG has GH\u00a2130 million a week in receivable, but only collects GH\u00a250 million. \u201cWhat happens to the balance? You look at their inventory and they have 20 years\u2019 supply of spares. You have locked up that money in spares that would be obsolete,\u201d he wondered.<\/p>\n
Monthly Debt Piling<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr Agyarko noted, \u201cECG\u2019s debt accumulation on a monthly basis is GH\u00a266 million. Every month, they add GH\u00a266 million to their cost. And if this happens in the next five years, what prevents the EOCO from laying you off?\u201d<\/p>\n Failure To Account For Power<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cHow is it that the power transmitted to EC, they cannot account for it over 20 years? People try to blame this small power theft, illegal power connection. That\u2019s not where it is. There\u2019s something called district boundary metering. We don\u2019t do it. So a district like Somanya does not know how much power has been given to it. The grid power system also does not know how much power it has given to Somanya and how much has been paid. It is like say, I supplied petrol to a petrol station, but I don\u2019t know how much petrol I put in the underground tank. So the station manager can come and say \u2018Oh here\u2019s GH\u00a2100. That\u2019s all you brought,\u2019 without you the supplier knowing how much you put in their tank. So unless we address this district boundary metering, that power loss will not go down. And each percentage of power lost is 60 million cedis. So you are losing 21 percent from start. And then the balance of 70 that you get, you only collect half of the money,\u201d the minister lamented.<\/p>\n US Embassy Demands Bills<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI 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 \u2018look, 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.\u2019 Up to now, the ECG hasn\u2019t been able to do that,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n MTN Too Calls For Bill<\/strong><\/p>\n According to Mr Boakye Agyarko, \u201cMTN called me and said \u2018we owe ECG GH\u00a235 million. We are trying to pay. We are waiting for wire instructions. And we\u2019ve been waiting for one month. So I went to ECG and I asked them. What\u2019s going on? And they said \u2018Oh the person who is supposed to issue the instructions is gone on leave\u2019\u2026.And they have as many as 6500 staff and still growing.\u201d<\/p>\n Negative Networking Capital<\/strong><\/p>\n Indicating that ECG\u2019s networking capital was minus 2 billion cedis, he said, \u201cWe have by act of omission or commission, run ECG down. It has to be picked up from the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cI live in Krobo Odumase, there are places there where ECG billed an electrician with just a bulb in his kiosk for GH\u00a24,000 a month. And the impudence on the part of ECG is they want to go and disconnect that person. ECG has to change.\u201d<\/p>\n Experts believe that the resistance being put up by some organizations to government\u2019s privatization moves of the ECG is just a ploy to cover up the company\u2019s deep sores and its current helpless state.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: Daily Guide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minister Of Energy, Emmanuel Boakye Ayarko, has expressed shock at the growing debt stock of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) which appears to be worsening by the day due to its faulty metering system and avoidable employee recklessness. Speaking to a group of journalists and officials of Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32],"tags":[332,3,916],"yoast_head":"\n