We’re not taking cash in ongoing revenue mobilisation exercise – ECG

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is not taking cash in its ongoing revenue mobilisation exercise intended to rake in some funds to defray the company's indebtedness.

This was disclosed by the Managing Director (MD), Samuel Dubik Mahama, in an interview with Kwabena Bobie Ansah on the Citizen Show on Accra100.5FM Wednesday, 22 March 2023.

According to him, the move is part of ECG's strategy for accountability.

"This exercise that we've embarked on, we don't take cash, you pay by either mobile money, you walk into the nearest bank and you pay or you can pay by your bank card by following the prompt," he stated.

Mr. Mahama explained that the power distribution company used to take cheques, but some dishonourable clients were issuing dud cheques.

"ECG used to take cheques, but what happens when it bounces because we were crediting people immediately they gave us cheques? That means we have to go back chasing the customer," he stated, adding "We know there are few honest people, but majority are not, so we don't accept cheques anymore."

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), on the first day of its month-long debt-collection exercise, recovered GHȼ18.5 million from three state institutions.

Together, the House of Parliament, the Ghana Airport Company Limited and Ghana Broadcasting Corporation owed the state power distributor a total of GHȼ46.9 million.

Parliament was the first port of call.

It paid GHȼ8.5 million of a total power debt of GHȼ13 million after an initial offer to pay GHȼ1 million was rejected by ECG.

It saved the legislature from being taken off the national grid.

The Manager of External Communications of the ECG, Laila Abubakari, said: "GHȼ5 million of the GHȼ8.5 million they promised will be paid by the Finance Ministry through the GIFMIS platform".

"They have written us a cheque for the rest of GHȼ3.5 million, but we asked them to process it electronically because we are not accepting cheques or cash in this exercise."

The second stop was GACL, whose security personnel initially resisted the "invasion" of the company's premises.

A meeting between the two parties eventually resulted in GACL making an upfront payment of GHȼ10 million of its GHȼ28 million power debt with a promise to defray the balance of GHȼ18 million in two weeks.

The last stop for the day was the state broadcaster which owes GHȼ5.9 million.

According to the state broadcaster, the Ministry of Information had earlier reached an agreement with the Energy Ministry to pay the amount this year after clearing some GHȼ17 million of the total debt last year.

All three institutions were spared being taken off the grid.

The company has also disconnected certain institutions like the Cape Coast stadium, KFC in Ho for owing GH¢68,000, Ho Airport for owing GH¢63,000, GRA Office for owing GH¢55,000, CEPS training academy for owing GH¢80,000 and Ho Technical University for owing GH¢402,000.

However, Ho technical university paid GH¢200,000 after crunch talks with the ECG and has been told to settle the arrears by the end of March 2023.

ECG hopes to recover "100% of the entire GHȼ5.7 billion at the end of the nationwide exercise."