Energy expert, Kojo Poku has disclosed that private sector participation will help in addressing the challenges at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
According to him, it is crucial for customers to receive affordable and reliable electricity. As such, the involvement of private sector participation will guarantee that some of the challenges at the company are resolved.
His comments follow the Auditor General’s report on some losses accrued by the Electricity Company of Ghana.
“We had a brief spell of the private sector participation through PDS, and we saw a very huge improvement in the way ECG functions, the psyche of the employees and how they respond to faults and how they deal with customers. Private sector participation will address all the issues [at ECG]”.
Kojo Poku
“In procurement processes, when things are ordered, they need to be inspected before they are even dispatched. I am a partner of a company that ordered some from the Netherlands. I travelled to Rotterdam to inspect the goods before they were shipped. That is the private sector, and the public sector does things differently.
“That is why I am saying that it is something that if things are done well, the systematic problems will be checked”.
Kojo Poku
Furthermore, the Energy expert noted that relieving government of the operations of ECG and assigning it to the private sector will help resolve the challenges.
Private sector participation
Furthermore, Mr Poku indicated that, albeit the Minister of Energy has assured private sector participation, it is not certain when it will be actualized.
“There is a lot of things that happen in the public sector that can never happen in the private sector. If a private company owns this, some of the things that you read in that report will never happen”.
Kojo Poku
A Policy analyst on Petroleum and Conventional Energy at Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Justice Kodzo Yaotse, speaking on the issue revealed that the losses incurred at ECG are likely to increase.
He insisted that the Auditor General’s report which has unravelled the losses incurred by the company, particularly, covers up to 2019.
Mr Yaotse explained that ACEP undertook some work on the power distribution company and found ECG’s losses to be growing by 30%.
“It is worrying and it should even be worse by now, because, this report only covers up to 2019. So, last year a lot had happened and a lot has happened this year also. This year, we know that the losses are growing up to 30% of the business that they do. So, it is getting worse by the day”.
Justice Kodzo Yaotse
Auditor General’s report on ECG
A 2020 report of the Auditor-General has unravelled that prepaid meters and conductors procured by the Electricity Company of Ghana, ECG, have been left unused for five years.
The abandoned meters and conductors are said to be worth GHS59, 161,964.56.
Per the report, between 2014 and 2016, the meters have not been issued out to customers because ECG management failed to distribute old stock before purchasing the new meters.
The Auditor-General, thus, recommended that prepayment meters and conductors are given out without delay.
The report noted the items were either partially issued or have not been issued at all but are rather being kept in the stores at the time of inspection on August 8, 2019.
The procurement status report of 2018 and stores receipt vouchers also revealed that management procured new prepayment meters for the developmental activities and abandoned the previous procurement made.
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