The Member of Parliament for Dormaa East, Paul Apraku Twum Barimah has commended the Minister of Energy, Mathew Opoku Prempeh and the Manager Director of the Electricity Company
of Ghana, Samuel Dubik for collaborating to retrieve the huge debts owed ECG by corporate institutions and individuals.
He praised Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh for fully supporting ECG’s quest to retrieve debts owed the company as part of the overarching efforts at sustaining the operations of the electric power distributor. Through this operation, ECG has been able to retrieve over ghc2million ghana cedis from customers this month.
Honourable Paul Twum Barimah also praised the Ernergy Minister for the efficient distribution of electricity across the country when the Atuabo Gas plant was shut down for maintenance.
The Member of Parliament who is also member of the Energy committee in Parliament revealed that initially analysts thought the shutdown of the Atuabo gas plant was going to push Ghana into “dumsor” and interrupt the supply of electricity across the country but that did not happen due to the competent hands that managed the situation.
“I am impressed with the way the Minister of Energy. Honorable Mathew Opoku Prempeh has collaborated with the ECG MD to efficiently manage the power supply chain in the country; to the extent that we didn’t experience any major outages during the shutdown of the Atuabo Gas Plant for maintenance. This implies that our energy sector is in safe hands under the leadership of Honorable Mathew Opoku Prempeh.
On 5th April 2023, maintenance of the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant in the Western region was completed .The completion of the maintenance brought an end to the pockets of power outages experienced by some power consumers. Meanwhile Ghana has placed first in access to electricity rate in sub-Sahara Africa, a latest report by the World Bank has stated.
The World Bank’s April 2023 Africa’s Pulse Report, which assessed electricity access rate between 2015 and 2021 scored Ghana 81.2 per cent. Cote D’Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal, and Nigeria followed the ranking order, scoring 77.0 per cent, 76.0 per cent, and 73.5 per cent respectively.
Nigeria, Rwanda, and The Gambia placed 5th, 6th, and 7th after scoring 69.1 per cent, 65.0 per cent, and 61.0 per cent respectively. The Report also noted that Ghana, together with Rwanda, and Kenya were on track to achieving full energy access by 2030.The World Bank said access to energy was one of the most profound development challenges Sub-Saharan Africa faced.
Paul Twum Barima also lauded the ECG boss for recouping over GH¢2 billion from its defaulting customers within the last few weeks.
The company in its one-month-long revenue mobilization is eyeing to recover some GH¢5.7 billion from individuals and firms who have failed to pay for power used.The ECG exercise has forced both government and private institutions to cough up some funds to settle outstanding debt to avoid disconnection.Some institutions were not disconnected from the national grid following the show of commitment to settle their debts.