ECG sabotage allegations 'senseless' – MP

The accusation by Majority Chief Whip Muntaka Mubarak Mohammed that the nation’s main power supplier, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), was undermining President John Mahama’s efforts at ending the erratic power situation, known locally as ‘dumsor’, has been described as senseless by another lawmaker, Kweku Agyeman-Manu, MP for Dormaa Central.

Ghana has been grappling with a power crisis for the past four years and with the country almost wriggling out of that situation, numerous complaints have emerged from consumers of being overbilled for consumption of power, a charge ECG has admitted, putting it down to faulty billing software.

Mr. Muntaka, who is also MP for Asawase, had, on the floor of the legislature Tuesday, May 24, stated: “Reports suggest that in several cases, the cost of consumption has more than doubled, and this has imposed undue hardship on virtually all Ghanaians, especially on the ordinary masses.

“It has come to my notice that where some individuals have complained to ECG, the errors in their billing were corrected, and the problems were somehow resolved, but for the majority of consumers, the overbilling still persists. …It has come to my notice that the overall effect of this is that the effort of President John Dramani Mahama to permanently solve the long-standing power crisis is severely being undermined, and the crisis in the supply of electricity is being deepened.”

The former Sports Minister said errors in the billing of the newly installed pre-paid meters, administrative lapses due to poor supervision of technical officers and their superiors, deliberate efforts by some unscrupulous ECG officials to take advantage of the new billing arrangement for personal gains, and over-estimation of bills by consumers on post-paid meters, had all conspired to culminate in the current billing anomaly.

But reacting on Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Wednesday, May 25, Mr. Manu disagreed with his colleague legislator, saying the ECG was only being used as a lightning rod for government’s bad policies.

He wondered why the power supplier would work against the interests of the government now when they could have done so during the severe power crisis of the last four years.

“What would ECG gain by sabotaging the government? Was it not the government that appointed the managing director of the ECG? Will an NPP sympathiser be appointed to head the ECG under this NDC government? That can never be true. So, how does someone you have appointed to smoothly manage the affairs of a state organisation sabotage you?,” the MP asked.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman said the current situation required “common sense” to address, rather than accusations.

He continued: “This is no sabotage, this is the impact of a wrong policy and strategy of implementation. That is all. This is one of the effects of bad governance. This is one of the effects of taking a decision and you do not sit down to analyse the impact on the citizenry.”

He said government did not think about the governed in approving the increases in electricity at the end of 2015 as it was only concerned with billing citizens and misappropriating revenue.

“That is all… I don’t think there is any sense in what my colleague said,” he concluded.