Samuel Dubik Mahama
The Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Dubik Mahama, has revealed that the power distributing company is owed to the sum of GHS5.7 billion by customers.
According to him, the state-owned power distributor is leaving no stone unturned to recover money owed the company in order to improve on it services to Ghanaians.
He said the company would intensify the collection of its debts by visiting various institutions and individuals.
This comes after ECG is embarking on a debt recovery exercise since Monday, March 20, 2023 from individuals and institutions.
The Managing Director of the company mentioned that ECG is able to collect between GHS40 to GHS250 million Cedis daily since the exercise commenced.
“I can tell you that each day between GHC40 to GHC50 million is collected, we are expecting it to go up,” the MD said.
The task force has been visiting institutions such as Parliament, the Ghana Arprort Company Limited (GACL) and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) as part of the debt recovery.
Majority of that amount is owed by foreign companies operating locally who are not complying with the regulated terms of payment.
Report indicates that B5 committed to paying GHS8.5million, we saw evidence of that.
“We went to the Ghana Airpot Company, they owed arrears of GHS28million of which they made GHS10 million payment instantly just when we got there so we have given them 48 hours to make the full payment.”
Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, they also owed in arrears of about GHS6 million but they have explained to us that because of the way they run their operations they wouldn’t be able to cough out the money for us instantly, they have had some discussions with the Minister of Information and the National Media Commission together with the Ministry of Energy and there was some sort of agreement last years. However, ECG’s point is that there has not been any movement on the debt that is remaining.
“They have explained to us they have a system and they are going to get some money and pay because they have to find innovative ways of coming up with the money and so we have been giving permission to leave them for now for 48 hours.”
Laila Abubakar said “In Tema, we have received photos of disconnections happening in residences, we have received photos of them in some of the industries in Tema and they are being disconnected.
“I am hoping that by the end of the day, we should be able to see a lot of money coming in into our accounts.
“Our system has been digitized in such a way that by the end of the day the Managing Director will be able to see how much we have recouped from this exercise and so we will report in a timely basis how much we are making on a weekly basis.”
By Vincent Kubi