Few executives in Ghana made as much of an impact on their companies in the calendar year 2023 as Mr Samuel Dubik Mahama, the Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

In just a year, Mr. Mahama took the beleaguered power operator to heights it had never achieved in its history, cementing his position as one of the most accomplished leaders in the public and private sectors.

Mr Mahama's enormous achievements were recognized by amassing numerous awards throughout the year as the transformational leadership he brought to ECG was easily recognizable.

But how did he do it? Mr Mahama achieved his objectives at ECG by introducing a no-nonsense leadership approach to the company's dealings that it has sorely lacked for a long time, and Ghanaians recently got a taste of that through his dealings with the Parliament of Ghana.

Parliamentary 'DUM'

A few weeks ago, many Ghanaians got their first taste of the no-nonsense man behind lifting the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) from a sinking dinosaur to a rising phoenix when electricity to Ghana's Parliament was cut during an MP's debate of the annual State of the Nation (SOTN) address.

Mr. Samuel Dubik Mahama, the generational leader who has turned the fortunes of the national power distributor around, attained internet immortality when he was asked about cutting power to Ghana's Parliament and gave a cheeky but no-nonsense response that quickly went viral.

Asked by Bola Ray why ECG cut power to the national legislative chamber whilst they were in session, ie 'working', Mr Mahama said ECG was also working at the time.

For decades, ECG has been an institution teetering on the brink of collapse due to a management style that was too cozy with the powers that be and hence reluctant to take the harsh decisions needed to stabilize its revenues.

Many state-owned enterprises owe the Electricity Company millions and millions of cedis and rarely make any attempt to settle those debts.

Many individuals are also owing millions of cedis, using all sorts of tricks, and colluding with some officials to evade paying their bills.

All these have contributed to ECG being crippled and unable to fulfil its full potential, leaving it often as the object of mockery and derision from Ghanaians.

Under the leadership of Samuel Dubik Mahama, measures have been put in place across board to address these massive challenges that have historically held ECG back and the results have been nothing short of marvellous.

For instance, according to the BBC, ECG recouped a whopping $1m in debt from Parliament with that single SOTN power cut.

Despite all these achievements, Mr. Mahama is not celebrated enough, partly due to the media failing to recognize and highlight the transformational leadership he has brought to the company.

In this article, we highlight these changes, their results, and why Samuel Dubik Mahama has been the best thing to happen to ECG and power distribution in Ghana in decades.

Transformational Leadership


The reversal of ECG's fortunes has not come on a silver platter but has been the result of the transformational leadership of Mr Mahama, implemented through hard work and flawless execution of various plans.
Under the leadership of Samuel Dubik Mahama, ECG has introduced numerous policies and measures that have led to the company being able to escape its past troubles.

These all have led to the company astronomically improving its revenue mobilization, streamlining its practices, eliminating inefficiency, and building a world-class organization.

They have also transformed ECG into a mostly digitalized company making it easier to meet the demands of a 21st century clientele.
The measures that have yielded all these results include;

Revenue Mobilization efforts


ECG has taken several measures under the leadership of Samuel Mahama to increase the revenue it rakes in drastically.

In Operation 20 to 20, ECG carried out a one-month moratorium exercise targeting all categories of customers in arrears, notably including the notoriously long defaulting State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs).

Under Operation Zero, ECG carried out a revenue mobilization exercise that covered an astonishing 1,225,000 customers.

Out of the total, ECG recorded 177,623 anomalies out of which 61,739 were regularized on the spot. A total of 59,072 customers were billed and payments were made instantly.

Finally, Operation Fix the Bill And Pay the Bill, saw ECG unleash about 4,000 staff including Management to be on the field to augment the efforts of the revenue-collecting Directorates to rake in revenue.

The month-long effort led to ECG realizing a historic 100% increment in year-on-year revenue in 2023.

Digitalization efforts

Under the cashless project, ECG introduced a policy of stopping the sale of electricity at its offices via cash.

Simultaneously, the company vastly upgraded its existing mobile app, adding more features for enhanced performance.

The result of these policies was the public turning away from purchasing electricity at the ECG offices and instead, using the mobile app.
This led to an unprecedented increase in the number of users of the ECG mobile app, jumping from only 500,000 users at the beginning of 2023 to 3.4 million users at the end of 2023.

Under the loss reduction project, ECG replaced all non-MMS-compliant meters with smart prepaid meters for better monitoring and enhanced convenience.

Finally, ECG introduced the Customer and Assets and Information Management System (CAIMS), to digitize the company's assets and customer databases.

CAIMS serves as a comprehensive digital repository for all ECG-tagged assets, including distribution transformers, LV poles, building structures, and meters, as well as customer information.

Awards & Recognitions

All these measures taken by ECG under the leadership of Samuel Dubik Mahama led to him raking in numerous awards in 2023 such as;

1) Top 20 Outstanding Corporate CEOs of the Year Award - Top 50 Ghana Entrepreneurs and Corporate Executives Award and Summit 2023.

2) Exceptional Leader in Sustainable Power Distribution & Reliability - 4th Africa Public Sector Conference & Awards 2023.

3) CEO of the Year (Power) - Ghana CEO Awards 2023.

4) Distinguished Leadership Award Institute of Leadership & Governance - Chartered CEO of the Year 2023

5) CEO of the Year 2023 - 7th Ghana Energy Awards

6) 100 Most Influential People Awards - The Business Executives

ECG as an organization also won several awards, a testament to the sound leadership of its Managing Director.

1) Marketing-Oriented State Owed Agency of the Year - 12th Marketing World Awards 2023
2) Public Sector Campaign of the Year - 4th Africa Public Sector Conference & Awards 2023
3) Public Sector Team of the Year - 4th Africa Public Sector Conference & Awards 2023

Future Endeavours

Despite everything achieved in 2023, ECG has shown no desire to rest on its laurels and is telegraphing a series of moves to keep its current trajectory going.

According to Mr Mahama, the company plans to 'maximize' its 2023 gains by focusing on revenue growth and aggressive reduction of system losses in 2024 and beyond.

“These are expected to increase revenue collection,” he promises, with ECG setting an ambitious new revenue target of Ghc 2 billion monthly throughout the year 2024.

ECG also aims to introduce paperless service applications to take all aspects of their services online.

This aims at making all ECG customers applying for new services, separate meters, additional load, etc to apply through the EGG Mobile App, ensuring customers can access all the company's services in an easy, timely, and efficient manner.

Other new measures including Spot Billing and a Nationwide Meter Audit are all aimed at ensuring ECG's new revenue targets are met by eliminating fraud and waste from the system.

Conclusion

It has become all too common to expect mediocrity from state-owned agencies in their approach to carrying out their duties, and indeed even ECG has been guilty of this in the past.

However, under the leadership of Samuel Dubik Mahama, the company has made a concerted effort to shed this reputation, doing so by implementing new measures and tightening existing ones.

The result is a company that is reliable and efficient and perhaps for the first time in its history, meeting its stated objectives.
ECG is also enjoying the esteem of Ghanaians, due to improvements in its digital infrastructure, making it easier than ever to access its services in a hassle-free manner.

All these are due to the transformations introduced by Samuel Dubik Mahama, a leader worth celebrating for turning around the fortunes of one of the country's most important organizations.

--By Chris-Vincent Agyapong Febiri, the author is a Ghanaian-British writer/journalist and a Human Rights Lawyer based in the UK.