[ 2017-05-16 ]

Yaw Osafo-Marfo, Senior Minister

Pay right tariffs to save VRA - Osafo Maafo
Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Maafo has urged
Ghanaians to pay the right prices for the energy
they consume if the Volta River Authority (VRA)
and other power-producing and distribution
companies are to function effectively.

He further advised against collusion with some
officials of the Electricity Company of Ghana to
pay little or nothing at all for power consumed.

Mr Maafo gave the counsel on day two of the
National Policy Summit in Accra on Tuesday, 16
May, under the topic: “Innovations and
Opportunities in Government’s New Energy Sector
Management Programme”.

According to the former Minister of Finance, some
unpatriotic citizens do not pay for the power they
consume, which affects the operations of the VRA
as it is unable to service debts it owes banks.

He said: “They arrange with those who collect
the bills and pay very little or nothing. In
between people have all kinds of connection: they
don’t pay for the power they use. So what
happens to VRA? There is a shortfall of
energy.”

The former Member of Parliament for Akim Oda
lamented: “I’ve done it on two occasions since
we came to power. VRA needs letters of credit
(LCs) in getting crude oil so that they can
produce because nobody wants ‘dumsor’. The
Minister of Finance has to call banks for the
banks to give LCs to VRA to bring in the necessary
crude oil to produce power… I called an MD of a
bank to come to Accra to confirm an LC to enable
us have oil to generate power. In the end, it is
not paid for because when it gets to the end user
the money doesn’t come.

“The worry of the World Bank today – and the
Finance Ministry knows – is that all our
compacts that the Americans did with us was to
straighten the operations of ECG because the way
we are going, we can’t have a reliable source of
energy to run this country and without energy
there is no economy. So we can’t have a
situation where all those who are producing the
power in between are not paid the service they
render and to make things worse after they borrow
the money, they don’t pay the banks as well.

“So as I speak, you take VRA’s balance sheet
and you look at the banks that have lent monies to
VRA and VRA has not been able to pay that…and we
continue to force these banks to provide LCs to
support VRA’s operations. This is the situation
we find ourselves. So let us do things right and
let us pay the right prices for what we consume no
matter what so that the institutions themselves
operate profitably. It is important to have strong
institutions, not strong individuals.”

Source - classfmonline.com

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