ECG Is Broke – Communications Director Pleads With PURC To Remove The Fine

The Director of Communications at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Mr William Boateng, has stated categorically the utility company is broke.

He stressed that the ECG would not get money to pay the current fine Imposed on it by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to compensate customers affected by its prepaid vending and metering glitch. 

Speaking in an interview with Soireenews.com, Mr Boateng noted that the challenge of the system failure the company has faced currently is a pure accident which has never happened before in their system.

Mincing no words, Mr Boateng maintained that the management of ECG is in process to engage its regulator to explain to PURC about what really caused the system failure of its prepaid vending and metering.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission has directed the Electricity Company of Ghana to compensate customers affected by its prepaid vending and metering glitch. 

The directive according to the PURC is in line with the breach of the ECG’s statutory obligations. 

The ECG had ruled out any payment of compensation following the vending failure in its prepayment system which has affected consumers for the past one week, adding that, such a decision if considered will be made on a case by case basis. 

But in a statement issued today, Tuesday October 4, 2022, the PURC said, “it hereby orders ECG to pay compensation to the affected customers”.

This it says, is in compliance with the law and a demonstration of good customer service.

These compensations will come in the form of one-time electricity credit commencing 1 October 2022 and ending October 7, 2022.

Life consumers are to be given GH¢15 credit equivalent while those in the residential and non-residential are to receive GH¢ 120 and GH¢ 240 respectively. 

The loss suffered by commercial and industrial institutions are to be reimbursed with penalty units equivalent of GHS GHS 480 and 1, 200 as a show of responsive customer service.

Persons to benefit from the compensation include customers in Volta, Takoradi, Tema, Cape Coast, Kasoa, Winneba, Swedru, Koforidua, Nkwakaw and Tafo. 

But in a quick response, Mr Boateng pointed out that the company could not fathom why the PURC did not actively engaged the EGG to listen to the company side of the story before it took its current decision to fine the utility company.

"We think that to ensure fairness in this matter, it is would be equally good for PURC being the regulator to engage ECG on this inconvenience challenges to find out from the company what had happened before taking any decision in that regard.

"...but the PURC has not done that  In fact we are not saying that we will not pay the fine but the ECG is completely broke. We are not even making profit. We are operating at loss. So where we are going to get the money to pay this fine," Mr Boateng explained.

Mr Boateng was of the view that "this vending failure in its prepayment system doesn't amounts to poor performance or inefficiency on their side, adding that the PURC should have considered this situation which, he described as a pure accident.

He pointed out that "it is not that the engineers or workers of the ECG are not doing their works well, explaining that "this is an unforeseen accident which had never happened in our system before."

"This is not the case that someone is not delivery good services to its customers and that this is the first time we have such an accident of vending failure in our prepayment system. This is a pure accident and that the PURC should have taken its time to listen to us for it [PURC] to look into what had brought out these challenges," the ECG communications Director stressed.

Mr Boateng argued that the move by the PURC to rule out this case without having time to get the side of the ECG is completely against the rights of the company.

According to Mr Boateng, during this first ever system failure, the EGC has encountered severe revenue lost through illegal connection of electricity power by some unscrupulous individuals customers but his outfit kept mute on the lost.

"In the wake of this inconvenience challenges we are aware that most of the affected customers had illegally connected electricity directly without even paying any money. So this huge lose which we had encountered what does the PURC saying about it," Mr Boateng rethorically asked.

He described this situation as fortune and called on the PURC to rescind it decision to relax the fine Imposed on the company because the company is bankrupt.

He stated that the payment of such compensation to the affected customers would be very difficult for the company.

He reiterated that "This is pure accident and that it is not an issue of inefficiency of the workers of the company."