[ 2016-06-14 ]

ECG concession arrangement will help private sector - PEF boss
CEO of the Private Enterprise Federation (PEF)
Nana Osei Bonsu has supported the concession
arrangement that will allow for private sector
participation in operations of the ECG.

In an interview with the B&FT, Nana Osei Bonsu
argued that under terms of the Millennium
Challenge Compact, once the ECG is handed over to
a private firm for the stated period of time,
other private entities can enter the distribution
market and bring about competition.

“Under Compact II, ECG will not be privatised.
All that it is going to happen is ECG’s mandate
to distribute power will now be challenged by
private sector businesses which can also be
empowered to deliver. This way, competition and
efficiency will be brought into power
distribution.

“And that is what compact II is all about. It
will not privatise ECG. It will provide a room for
private businesses to do what ECG is doing. And
wherever there is competition there is efficiency,
so the private sector is going to benefit because
this will give them a choice,” Nana Osei Bonsu
said.

He further dismissed concerns by some members of
the public that the concession arrangement will
make power more expensive than usual, urging the
private sector to take advantage of it.

“Why is it going to make power more expensive
when there is competition and efficiency? It is
because of the inefficiency we are experiencing
and the burdens of cost that we pay too much for
power. So this time we are not going to rely so
much on ECG because there will be other players.
So I don’t foresee how it can be worse than what
we have. It is rather going to get better. It is a
benevolent intervention from the American
government to us, so we should take advantage of
it,” he said.

He however called on the Public Utilities
Regulatory Commission (PURC) to conduct a thorough
investigation and analysis into the cause of
recent unusual amounts that businesses have been
paying for power in the country.

“There must be a thorough analysis of what the
price structure is. The business sector will pay
its fair share for power at the right price; but
if there are excesses we cannot afford to pay for
waste. So we have to analyse to see where the
increases are coming from and what is causing
them. There is something wrong, and it must be
analysed so that we can arrive at a consistent
angle where we will know how much we are paying
for power,” Nana Osei Bonsu said.

Meanwhile, Managing Director of ECG Robert
Dwamena has jumped to the defence of the
company’s new billing system -- stating that
there are no errors in the software, hence the
public must have confidence in the system.

“Since inception of the Commercial Management
System (CMS) in 2015, ECG has issued about 8.5
million bills to its customers; and out of this
only about 7,823 had billing anomalies. Out of
this total [7,823], 4,050 are yet to be resolved.
We have resolved above 3,000 and so we are giving
the assurance to all our customers that we are
hopeful of resolving the rest by end of June.

“I must say that all issues concerning
application of the software have been resolved,
and it is important for me to say we have no
problems with the software… We therefore want to
assure our customers to have confidence in our
billing systems,” Mr. Dwamena said in a press
release.

Source - B&FT

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