Member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, Edward Abambire Bawa, has called out the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for being indiscipline and irresponsible.
According to him, ECG is not only unable to account for the power it sells but has also failed to be transparent to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and state-owned power generation companies when it comes to revenue collection and payments.
Speaking on Newsfile on JoyNews, Mr Bawa said that ECG does not have transparent records.
He also alleged that the company has failed to provide the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) with the needed documents for audits on their purchase of fuel.
“You have a situation where the shareholder (PURC) tells you to run a single account then you refuse and indeed not only are you maybe running seven but actually 37 accounts. You cannot describe this in any way apart from indiscipline," he said.
Mr Bawa noted that, "The reason why ECG is forced to subject itself to the cash waterfall mechanism (CWM) is because of the fact that they simply cannot account for the power they buy (and later sell) and because of this the revenues they get cannot even settle all their bills.
He added that “if you look at your losses, and if you have a loss that is between 30-34%, it is an issue. If you are buying GH₵100 worth of power you are losing roughly about GH₵34 and therefore you only have GH₵66, that will have to take care of all the players who have contributed to bringing the power. This is why the cash waterfall mechanism was put in place.”
The MP for Bongo stressed that the PURC was brought in to regulate the mechanism especially since many of the IPPs and state power generation companies complained about the lack of transparency in the administering of the system.
He stated that the ECG did not make known the total amount of revenue gained before it made the needed distribution under the cash waterfall mechanism aimed at ensuring revenues collected from the regulated electricity market, are equitably and transparently allocated across the electricity value chain.
“In the first place, the players themselves, whether it is a level A beneficiary, and that's the IPPs or the state-owned agencies, or level B, they simply do not know how much falls into the pot. And the reason why they do not know is because ECG is simply not transparent. So I’m not surprised PURC is insisting on that law.”
“If you say that you used part of your money in procurement, let us see whether you have a directive from the state (the Ministry of Energy or Ministry of Finance), that use part of your revenue that you have gotten in procuring fuel. Let’s see the fuel contract that you signed with those who were supposed to supply the fuel and the invoices that were there, tell us what the quantities were,” he said.
This comment comes after the PURC said the ECG acted irresponsibly when it used part of the money accrued under the Cash Waterfall Mechanism to purchase fuel to generate power.
The decision, which left the Volta River Authority (VRA) and the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) cashless under the mechanism between November 2023 and January 2024, is said to be impacting negatively on the operational capacity of the two entities.
The PURC has since issued a one-week ultimatum to ECG to respond to a set of demands and warned that it may resort to sanctions if the demands are not met.
Director of Regional Operations and Consumer Services with the Commission, Alhaji Jabaru Abubakar said that the ECG cannot operate on their own terms.
Credit: myjoyonline.com