Changes in management won’t affect power supply — ECG Board

The Board of Directors of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has assured the public of regular supply of power in spite of changes in the management of the establishment.

It said all the systems of the ECG were in place to offer the essential services it provided to Ghanaians.

“The board has received the support of management and we are here to assure you that the fact that we have had changes in management would not mean that you are going to have some interrupted power supply,” the Chairman of the ECG board, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, told the press in Accra yesterday.

“The entire system of the company is in place and the company will continue to provide the essential services that it provides for Ghanaians and the country. So, simply that's the point, nothing more,” he said in an update to the public on developments in the company.

The board addressed the press shortly after an emergency board meeting, a day after the Managing Director (MD) of the company, Samuel Dubik Mahama, resigned from the company.

The board, he said, had accepted the resignation of the MD, and that a Deputy MD, David Asamoah, had been nominated to act as MD, pending decisions with the sole shareholder of the company, the government.

Mr Afenyo-Markin, who is also the Majority Leader of Parliament and Leader of Government Business in the House, indicated that the board would have necessary engagements with the sole shareholder on the matter.

Responding to a question on the joint statement issued by the ECG and the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) on power outages being experienced in some areas, he said those were matters for management to speak about. 

Management

Making a general comment in response to a question on a letter from the ECG to the Finance Ministry asking for government’s support, he said the ECG expected consumers to cooperate with it in terms of payment of bills and also expected that persons that did illegal connections would be reported.

He said the company was not a political entity and that it provided essential services.

“Our financial situation, yes, we wouldn't want to become bankrupt, but we are faced with challenges, and we don't want to give it a one-sided view. It's both sides,” Mr Afenyo-Markin said.  

Reforms

He said the company would implement the necessary reforms to make it super efficient and counted on the cooperation of the public.

“I believe that, maybe in good faith, management was putting across the issues to government, and of course, we all are aware of the challenges that we face. But very soon, the company will make certain matters public. There's a new board,” he said.

Mr Afenyo-Marking said a lot of things were being done which he would not want to talk about now,  and gave the assurance that there was a strategy to ensure that support systems were in place to make ECG a continuously efficient state entity.