ECG is partly to blame for the debt owed by the institution – Kwabena Donkor
East Pru Member of Parliament and former Power Minister Dr Kwabena Donkor says the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is partly to blame for its institutional debt.
He accused the country’s previous power distributor of being under pressure from government institutions not to take on debt.
Speaking on TV3’s Ghana Tonight program on Tuesday, March 21, Dr Donkor said on the cause of ECG debt that “It is an attitude issue. Many government institutions think that there is only one center and that there may be debt settlement… there used to be an agency settlement arrangement but there is none again.
“ECG is partly to blame, before it has given in to various pressures from government institutions. When I was the Minister of Manpower, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and the Ministry of Finance registered prepaid, if you pay prepaid you can’t accumulate debt unless there is a mistake, that’s the challenge.
ECG has started a debt recovery exercise from Monday, March 20.
The company said it has introduced a digital system to ensure the amount of money received from the debt recovery exercise is directly monitored by the company’s Managing Director.
The task force visited institutions such as Parliament, the Ghana Arprort Company Limited (GACL) and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) as part of the debt recovery.
Speaking to journalists after the training on Monday, March 20, the Manager of External Communications of ECG, Laila Abubakar said, “The national task force is the one responsible for the state companies, ministries, departments and agencies and so we have gone with them, we opened Parliament House, they owe about GHS13million they committed to pay GHS8.5million, we saw evidence of that.
“We went to the Airpot Company of Ghana, they had arrears of GHS28 million, who made a payment of GHS10 million immediately when we got there, so we gave them 48 hours to pay in full.”
He added, “Currently, we are with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, they also owe about GHS 6 million, but they have explained that because of the way they operate, they will not be able to release the money. We will soon, they have had some discussions with the Minister Information and the National Media Commission together with the Ministry of Energy and there was some sort of agreement last year. However, the ECG point is that there is no movement in the outstanding debt.
“They have explained that they have a system and they will make money and pay because they have to find innovative ways to make money, so we have given them permission to leave within 48 hours.”
ECG has also cut houses and industries due to debt.
Laila Abubakar said, “In Tema, we have received photos of disconnections that are happening in homes, we have received photos of them in some industries in Tema and they are being disconnected.
“I hope that at the end of the day, we should be able to see a lot of money coming into our account.
“Our system has been digitized in such a way that at the end of the day, the Managing Director will be able to see how much we have recovered from this exercise and so that we will report in a timely manner on how much we have done each week. base.”
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana
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