Workers step up campaign against ECG privatisation

Workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana [ECG] in the Central Region have initiated a new campaign strategy against the move by government to privatised of the company.

The workers on Friday night mounted banners with the message - Leave ECG Alone- MIDA Stop ECG Privatisation – at all the company’s offices in the region; an indication of the workers’ zeal to stop the move which has been widely criticised.

Per the second compact of the Millennium Challenge Account signed by the Government in August 2014, the ECG is set to be leased to a private company for up to 30 years.

Among other things, the move seeks to ensure reliable power supply for domestic and industrial use, improved transparency and independence in the setting of regulated tariffs by the PURC, and improve ECG’s creditworthiness to enable it acquire additional generation capacity from IPPs without, or with limited, recourse to government guarantees.

However, the decision has been widely criticised by many experts and individuals including the workers of the company who are under the Public Utility Workers Union of the Trades Union Congress.

Speaking to TV3 on the latest move by the workers in the Central Region, the Deputy General Secretary of the Public Utility Workers Union, Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi, said has been prompted by the government’s insistence to go ahead with the deal despite the protest.

“It seems all the talking we have done government and MiDA have ignored and we think the time is now for government to understand that the workers are key stakeholders in ECG,” he said.

He said the privatisation of the ECG is not right and would not be in the interest of the country, noting that although the ECG has challenges the best way to handle it is not the trajectory the government is taking.

That, he said, is not only an imposition by the Millennium Development Authority but also an affront to the people of Ghana.