The Executive Director of the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye, has advised the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to strike a balance between retrieving the debt owed to it by institutions and not discouraging power consumption.
Mr. Boakye highlighted that the ECG needs consumers to purchase and consume power to make a profit. Therefore, the ECG should collect its debts, but not at the expense of discouraging power usage. He made these remarks during an interview on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on March 21, while commenting on the ECG’s efforts to recover its debts.
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Since March 20, the ECG has embarked on a debt recovery exercise and introduced a digitalized system to monitor the amount of money collected. The task force responsible for debt recovery visited institutions such as Parliament, Ghana Airport Company Limited, and Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.
While some institutions, such as Parliament, have committed to paying their debts, others like Ghana Broadcasting Corporation have explained their financial constraints and requested a 48-hour grace period to pay.
The ECG has also been disconnecting homes and industries over debts owed to it. Laila Abubakar, the External Communications Manager of ECG, expressed her hope that the debt recovery exercise would yield a significant amount of money for the company.
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She explained that the company’s digitized system would enable the Managing Director to monitor the money collected in real-time and report it weekly.
In conclusion, while it is crucial for the ECG to recover its debts, it should do so without discouraging power consumption, which would ultimately harm its profits.