ECG recoups GH3.1 billion from debtors

ECG recoups GH3.1 billion from debtors

Samuel Dubik Mahama, Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has revealed that the business has collected GH3.1 billion of the GH5.7 billion owed by its consumers across the country.

This followed the company’s one-month revenue mobilisation campaign, which targeted all kinds of clients in arrears, including State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs).

He did, however, admit that there is still more than GH1 billion to be collected, but he cautioned that doing so would be difficult given the conditions under which those debts were incurred.

He stated that some of the debtors include companies that have collapsed and left the scene with no recourse to ECG, accumulating a debt of about GH780 million, while another group of customers made up of post-paid customers, some of whom have moved on as a result of demolitions and flooding, accumulating a debt of about GH750 million.

“So we are still going to do our best to sustain this exercise and we are going to make sure that the last week of every month will be a revenue mobilisation exercise. In the last week of every month we would also do a ‘Know Your Customer’ drive to make sure that all customers we do not know or know of are captured or put in our books so that everybody pays what they have to pay,” Mr Mahama said.

He stated that the business’s revenue assurance team would always ensure that invoices are sent out on time for post-paid clients and that the company is now building a billing system that will also examine pre-paid metre readings.

He also revealed that, as part of its efforts to solve metre shortages, the business is implementing a flat charge service following a thorough estimation to remove the issue of illicit connections until clients are furnished with their own metres.

Mr Mahama declared another moratorium and urged those who use power without using ECG to attend any of its offices to have their consumptions recorded in order to avoid being arrested and punished.

“You cannot consume power for free. There is a huge gap that we have to close in the energy sector and we have come up with a strategy to collect whatever until such a time that you will be able to have your own metre,” he stated

Mr Mahama added that “Our Power App is still going through an enhancement, we are receiving traffic. I must admit we’ve been having some internet problems from our internet providers and we are working hard to switch to a better one or add on to it so that our service becomes dynamic.”