K’dua Poly students demo hits ECG

Students of Koforidua Polytechnic in the Eastern Region on Tuesday staged a demonstration to protest against the disconnection of electricity to the school by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

K-Poly, as it is popularly called, is owing the ECG over GHc700,000 in accumulated bills.

The institution has been experiencing interruptions in the supply of electricity in recent times with the latest disconnection occurring on August 25, 2015.

ECG stopped power supply to the administration block and subsequently the ICT block, which, according to the authorities, is affecting the admission of students for the 2015/2016 academic year as well as the results of the second semester examination.

The demonstration, organized by the Students’ Representative Council (SRC), formed part of a series of demonstrations it had planned to put pressure on the government to direct ECG to restore power supply to the school as they claim it has been interrupting academic work.

Prince Asiedu, the SRC President who led the demonstration, told DAILY GUIDE that the power cut was affecting their studies.

This paper gathered that the ECG early last month ignored a cabinet directive and went ahead to disconnect power supply to the school and other public educational and health institutions.

According to two separate letters dated 18 May, 2015 and 4 May, 2015 and signed by the Minister for Power and the Secretary to the Cabinet, Dr. Kwabena Donkor and Roger K. Angsomwine respectively, cabinet took note of the mass disconnection exercise embarked upon by the utility companies to recover all outstanding debts owed them by public sector institutions.

The letter reiterated that all MDAs should take responsibility for the payment of utility consumed, but charged the ECG to exempt public health and educational institutions from the disconnection exercise while these institutions adopt a comprehensive method of paying the bills.

The letter, copied to the Ag Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana, stated in the last paragraph that “The foregoing is for the strict compliance of ECG and NEDCO but does not stop them from installing prepaid meters on non-critical academic and health facilities nor demand payment for power used.” ECG however, ignored the directive.

Nii Annang Mensah Livingston, the Registrar of Koforidua Polytechnic in an earlier interview, said that the government had ordered the school not to make the students pay for utilities.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education has promised to absorb the utility bills till further notice.

The Ag. Commercial Manager of the Eastern Regional branch of the ECG, Emmanuel Sam, disclosed in a telephone interview that the cabinet directive didn’t ask his outfit to exempt public health and educational institutions entirely from being disconnected.

He indicated that the directive asked them to exempt critical areas of such institutions but not the institutions generally.