General News of Sunday, 18 January 2015
Source: citifmonline.com
The Minister of Power, Dr. Kwabena Donkor has served notice that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is on the brink of collapse if debts owed it are not recovered immediately.
He said it will be “most irresponsible” if “this valuable asset that we call ECG” is allowed to collapse.
Speaking at the inauguration of a committee to oversee the collection of debts owed ECG, the Power Minister said: “We are on the brink of collapse if we do not have cash infusion and yet we are owed hundreds of millions of cedis.
This, ladies and gentlemen, cannot and must not be allowed to continue.” Both state and private institutions are said to owe ECG about GHC 500 million. In 2014, the power distributor embarked on a nationwide disconnection exercise by cutting power to such institutions.
It included the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi, GBC Radio in Kumasi, Koforidua Polytechnic, the Geological Survey Department, Kumasi Technical Institute (KTI) and some other organizations.
He stressed that his Ministry will take the necessary measures to protect the power distributor.
According to him, the management and board of ECG are determined to have a “lean, efficient, commercially sensitive and aware organization that will ensure the survival of the power industry.”
The sector Minister said the government will solidly back efforts by ECG to recover all debts owed it “not only current bills but accumulated debts.”
Dr. Donkor also mentioned that “the anti-social behaviour of some ECG workers who collaborate with people to steal from ECG; the various bypasses that ECG has the capacity to detect and for which sections ECG has ignored their responsibility to detect because they stand to benefit,” will no longer be accepted.