The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), yesterday, embarked on a nationwide revenue mobilisation exercise to recover all unpaid bills, amounting to GH¢5.7 billion, from its customers. The exercise, which will last a month, targets domestic users, businesses, organisations, ministries, departments and state agencies for power already consumed from 2022 to February this year. The Managing Director of ECG, Samuel Dubik Mahama, said in an interview that the target was 100 per cent, and the plan was to get everyone who owed to pay, “so we are not leaving anyone out.”
It is very sad that the ECG, as an institution, can accumulate such a huge sum of money in debt from its customers. It is very important for everyone to pay the debt they owe to continue enjoying power. The ECG is supplied power at a cost to distribute, so if the debts are not paid in time, it will be difficult for them to stay in business. Surprisingly, government agencies and MDAs owe a bulk of the arrears. As a result, an enormous task has been placed on the ECG with their scanty field officers to go after the large number of customers that owe.
Explaining the rationale for deploying all administrative staff to be collectors for the ECG, Mr. Mahama said the debt situation had reached worrying levels, with a staff strength that cannot retrieve all the money owed them. Thus, it had become important to ensure that the company temporarily closed down all of its administrative offices to deploy its staff to be collectors on the field during the one-month period.
Interestingly, on the first day of the exercise, Parliament has been compelled to pay GH¢8.5 million from the GH¢13 million it owed, in order to avert disconnection from the national grid. Also, the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) has paid GH¢10 million out of the GH¢28 million it owed to avoid disconnection by the ECG.
The difficulty in the payment of the energy consumed by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), schools, and hospitals has crippled the operational capacity of ECG.
It will be recalled that during the late Prof. Atta Mills’ administration, we were told that the government had tasked ECG to move all government institutions from post-paid to pre-paid meters. What happened to that project? Does it mean the project wasn’t successful?
During the era of President John Mahama, he also directed that pre-paid meters be installed at the various public offices to control debts owed the ECG. The decision was to ensure that officials of the various ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) monitor their use of the energy and pay for it.
As at that time in August 2016, government institutions owed ECG an amount of GH¢950 million as a result of subsidies and non-payment of electricity bills, but, today, the debt has ballooned to GH¢5.7 billion.
Even though we advise all defaulters to settle their debts to avoid disconnection, ECG is also to be blame because, as a company, you are not to sit down for the debts to accumulate to such a huge amount before action is taken. It should be an everyday activity to make sure those who owe pay their debts.
We again advise the ECG to do everything in their power to make sure that all those on the post-paid meters are moved on to pre-paid meter. The pre-paid meters have the provision to display the actual remaining credit or money value as well as the total kilowatts consumed. This will put consumers in the position to manage their energy purchase to suit their requirements.
