ECG hits back at GNPC over dumsor on Thursday

Following the power cut, otherwise known as dumsor, in some parts of Accra on Thursday, October 26, 2023, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) stated categorically that it cannot be blamed for the power supply challenges.

It further said funds received by GNPC from the Electricity Company of Ghana have not been sufficient to pay the debts owed West Africa Gas Pipeline Company Limited (WAPCO) in recent times.

GNPC further said all attempts to get ECG to honour the overdue payments came to no avail, hence, the power crisis faced last Thursday.

Reacting to this on JoyNews' PM Express, the Managing Director of ECG, Samuel Dubik Mahama, expressed disappointment in the statement released by GNPC.

He opined that the issuance of the press release was unnecessary, especially at a time when the power cut had been resolved.

“What I know is that within the value chain, we are all supposed to work together. When I read their [GNPC] statement it saddened me because this is not something I was expecting because I felt the problem had been resolved and everybody was moving forward, and both GRIDco and ourselves had issued a statement to that effect, so it was neither here nor there, and I don’t even know why they should have even issued the statement in the first place,” he argued.

When asked by the host whether he thinks the power outage on Thursday was ECG’s fault, Mr Mahama said, “Honestly, I don’t [think so] because if we have agreed to something that legally it’s not on us, then to what end? However, we agreed to CWM because we wanted an equitable share of the money that ECG collects now on a monthly basis."

He further explained that, "When WAPCO was writing WAPCO never wrote to ECG. ECG sells electricity. We don’t even know the quality of gas or whatever. Ours is electricity. Every PPA that we sign, when we agree on the price in cents, it has a fuel component in it."

Mr Mahama stated that the power distribution company works with the Cash Waterfall Mechanism (CWM) in distributing the resources under the collections they make in a month.

The ECG Managing Director asserted that when WAPCO shut down on GNPC earlier this year, it was his outfit that stepped in to make payment for the restoration of WAPCO supplies without going public with it.

SA/NOQ

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