Ignorance Of Electricity Company Of Ghana Cost Government ?78,000.00

Accra,(Greater Accra) 23, Sept. Mr. Fred Ohene-Kena, Minister of Mines and Energy, today blamed the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for not taking the appropriate measures to establish the credibility of Union Electric (Nigeria) Limited before contracting its services. For example, he said, if the ECG had consulted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the background of the company, it would not have gone ahead to pay the company 78,000 pounds which it is now fighting to recover. The Minister made the remarks when he met the management of ECG during a familiarisation tour of the Electro-Volta House in Accra. The ECG contracted the Nigerian Company in 1994 to repair its burnt transformers for which it paid various amounts totalling 78,000 pounds but the company failed to honour its part of the deal. Mr. Ohene-Kena expressed misgivings about reported cases of theft, cheating and bribery against some ECG officials and advised them to address such issues. There were discussions on ECG's indebtedness to the Volta River Authority during which the Minister asked them to do well to settle the outstanding amount in good time. Available records indicate that the ECG owes some 75 billion cedis. Mr. Kwabena Hagan, the ECG Managing Director, said some form of investigation was undertaken before payments were made to Union Electric. He said ''two senior ECG officials were in Nigeria to assess the viability of the electrical company and returned with positive results which encouraged us to proceed''. The two officials, according to Mr. Hagan, have since resigned their positions in the ECG. He did not name them nor elaborate on the circumstances leading to their resignation. Mr. Hagan called for government and public support to help sustain the company's operations and cited the suspension of the recent power tariff increases, saying it has adversely affected its financial position. Dr. Smart Yeboah, a representative of the ECG senior staff, admitted reports of theft cases and said a number of measures were being adopted to reverse the trend. For example, he said, the executives have stepped up monthly durbars during which workers trade ideas on how best to solve pertinent problems of the company.