Mr Kwadwo Poku, an Energy Analyst has suggested to the new board of the ECG to stop the recurring of debts or losses of the ECG in order to solve the existing problem of gargantuan debts.
According to him, losses accumulated by the ECG in the past five years (2016-2020) has amounted to 26.63 per cent being 10 percent of technical losses and 16.63 per cent of commercial losses. He further stressed that by stopping the debt from accumulating even further, and thus, tackling it head-on, the board must push for the installation of prepaid metres at all government institutions.
“Before [the Board] can solve the problem, [it] has to stop the recurring of the debt. So, when you stop that, you know how much debt is there, then you tackle it. But if you tackle the debt without stopping it from recurring which, the only way to do that is to [install prepaid metres] at all government institutions. And Presidents upon Presidents have said this over and over again.”
Mr Kwadwo Poku, Energy Analyst
He further averred that, regards the problem of losses, those made via commercial losses should be looked at keenly, as not so much can be done about the technical losses in the interim. Furthermore, he revealed that a big chunk of these commercial losses is as a result of the irresponsibility of some staff of ECG whose work it is to ensure that some of these losses are reduced.
ECG losses already passed on to consumers
Mr Isaac Agyekumhene, a former chairman of the technical committee of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) commented that, given the total losses of 26.63 per cent, 22.6 per cent of the losses is worked into the electricity tariffs while the remaining 4 per cent was required for ECG to look for ways to take up, which then adds up to their indebtedness.
However, he contended that, the 22.6 per cent of losses has already been factored into the tariffs which consumers are already paying for.
In an interview, Mr Kwadwo Poku also brought to light one of the issues highlighted in the Auditor General’s report, about GHS59 million worth of prepaid metres locked up in a warehouse without use for five years. He averred that, this was not an issue of neglect on the part of ECG, but rather a grand scheme of fraud.
He explained that the contract was issued to a company called LNR worth US$40 million. Given an on–sign of the contract, the company was given US$12 million cash sent into their account, a Letter of Credit (LC) of US$24 million and upon completion and supply of contract, the company will be paid US$4 million.
However, upon the payment of the first tranche of US$12 million by ECG, the company shipped a container full of prepaid metres without having met certain requirements of the ECG. These involved, among other things, the fact that the ECG must inspect the metres before they are packaged at LNR’s factory, also, a type test report which should be sent to ECG by an accredited agency. All of these were not done, he pointed out.
He further indicated that since these conditions were not met, the ECG did not approve of the shipment, thus, one thing led to another. The ECG, therefore, left the shipment at the port unattended which accrued demurrage. As time went by, pressure was mounted on ECG to accept the metres and that explains the whole issue. However, he hinted that there has been a problem with the LNR Company since 2016.
As the issues unwind, it is very clear that there is need for adequate monitoring and supervision of the operations of the ECG to ensure that these occurrences do not resurface. Mismanagement of such grand levels need to be avoided to build a very robust and thriving ECG.
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