Privatisation of ECG’s operations has become critical – John Mahama

Former president John Dramani Mahama has called on government to privatise the operations of the Electricity Company of Ghana.

The operations and financial standings of the company have come under scrutiny over the years with calls for the company to be sold to a strategic partner to make it more viable.

But John Mahama in his latest suggestion said privatising the power distribution company will rather inject some efficiency and improve its revenue mobilisation efforts.

Addressing participants at the ‘Leadership Series’ of the Academic City University College in Accra, John Mahama said the privatisation of the ECG has now become critical to salvaging the company.

“It is something that we need to look at again because ECG as state-owned enterprise is not able to collect its money efficiently, it needs some private sector injections,” John Mahama said.

“One of the things we need to do is to roll out prepaid meter as quickly as possible, because if you have a prepaid meter, nobody will come and read your meter and bring a bill and you won’t pay and all that...”

He continued, “…And so I do believe we must still seek the privatisation of the Electricity Company of Ghana, so that we can inject more investment into it, because some of that money was going to provide more money for prepaid meters and also improve efficiency of collection of bills.”

Meanwhile, the founder of the All People Congress Hassan Ayariga, has also made a similar call for the privatisation of the ECG.

He believes the revenue performance of the power distribution company can be doubled as he is intent on buying the ECG to make it more profitable.

Speaking in an earlier interview on Pan African TV, Hassan Ayariga said he wants to purchase ECG in other to provide better services for all Ghanaians.

“They [Government] should sell ECG to me; I am ready to purchase the company. Even if they [Government] do not intend to sell the ECG, they should tell me how much revenue they intend to achieve every month.”

“…Government should sit with me on live television so we can bargain the cost of the ECG, how much they make and seek to achieve in revenue every month. I will give them two times the revenue amount and manage the ECG,” he earlier said.

He added that whatever revenue the government intends to rake in from the ECG, he [Hassan Ayariga] is willing to double the amount, should he be given the opportunity to purchase the company.

“If they want US$500 million a month, I will give them US$1 billion a month,” he added.

MA/FNOQ