Samuel Dubik Mahama
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) will today, March 20, 2023, lead the charge on a nationwide revenue mobilisation exercise to recover debts running into several millions of cedis.
The exercise will last till April 20, 2023, and primarily focus on customers who owe the company an amount totaling GH¢5.7 billion.
According to Samuel Dubik Mahama, Managing Director of ECG, the electricity debts have been a major constraint to the development of the company, as the government on many occasions had to secure loans from foreign entities to settle the energy sector debts, causing financial loss to the country.
He further described the nationwide mobilisation exercise as an antidote to end the incessant borrowing by the government noting that, if the company can stand up to be counted, and retrieve the GH¢5.7billion debts, it will go a long way to mitigate the economic challenges of the country.
Thus, the entire ECG offices, including the head office are being closed down for this exercise as Directors, including the Managing Director and staff, by directives will partake in the mobilisation exercise.
Subsequently, it shall maintain lean staff strength at the Customer Service Centres, the Finance Directorate to be working on the numbers as customers pay, and the Operational and Maintenance sections to keep the lights on.
He stressed, “for the next one month, the job schedule of all ECG employees has changed to debt collectors. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is hitting the ground running to retrieve customer arrears owed ECG.”
Mr. Mahama was optimistic that ECG’s digitalisation of operational and transactional systems will give a clearer understanding of what has been missing in the numbers, which need to be redeemed from customers.
“We will not have the comfort of sitting in our offices doing business as usual, whilst customers are owing money needed to reinvest into the company to make it more efficient.
“With our digitalisation and transactional system, we have a clearer understanding of what has been missing in the numbers and are much more confident to retrieve our debts from customers to mitigate the economic challenges of this country,” he stressed.
He also added that the resolution of the company’s network challenges has provided better data on the trend analysis of customer transactions.
“This exercise will affect all categories of customers of the company. Sensitive institutions such as the health facilities and security installations will be handled by the National Revenue Mobilisation Taskforce led by the coordinator from the Ministry of Energy, to see to the negotiation for payments of their arrears,” he asserted.
Mr. Mahama assured that all payments made by customers during this exercise will reflect in real-time on the company’s monitoring platform and customers’ accounts.
PURC Directives
Mr. Mahama debunked the notion that energy consumers complain of not being served with their electricity bills, leading to their inability to settle their debts.
He categorically stated that ECG officials shall not entertain such excuses, noting that the PURC directive instructs customers to pay on account of previous consumptions so long as they are consuming electricity as patriotic citizens until a reconciliation of the accounts is made.
“ECG staff have also been equipped with arrears dockets, plus the means to digitally view customer’s transaction data on the field,” he added.
In line with our customer-focused philosophy, customers who have a genuine challenge will be given a second chance, after which the disconnection and confiscation of the service line will apply.
BY Prince Fiifi Yorke