I have received calls to stop disconnection exercise – ECG boss

The Electricity Company Ghana (ECG) Managing Director has revealed that he has received calls to stop the disconnection exercise they are embarking on to retrieve unpaid debts.

According to Samuel Dubik Mahama, the calls he received are from friends, power brokers, and politicians.

He said the request made is “can you hold off?”

The ECG boss made this disclosure in an interview on JoyNews’ PM Express on Tuesday.

This follows the power company’s massive disconnection operation on Monday in an effort to pay off a debt of GH¢5.7 billion.

ECG asked its customers to pay up or be disconnected from the grid.

The company says it risk shutting down if they are unable to clear an outstanding $1 billion owed to some Independent Power Producers (IPP) hence the revenue mobilisation drive.

As a result, Mr Mahama says a halt in the exercise could be dire for ECG.

“How do we pay the Independent Power Producers? How do we pay GRIDCo? How do we pay VRA? It is a shared responsibility.

“Please let’s just do the right thing because I don’t even have the moral right after sending somebody out of the office to pick up the phone and call him and say ‘hello, can you cut X, Y and Z slack? No’ then what is the moral of the exercise?”’ he questioned.

Meanwhile, the ECG boss says the ongoing revenue mobilisation exercise being carried out by the ECG is not politically motivated.

Samuel Dubik Mahama says concerns that the exercise is being targeted at some party’s political base are unfounded and should be treated with the utmost contempt.

He stressed that he has no intention to politicise his office or mandate.

“I don’t see myself as doing politics, I see myself now as a technocrat. The biggest mistake we could ever do is to politicise the work done by this office.

“So for me, your electricity bill doesn’t have a party colour…your electricity bill is red, gold, and green with a black star in the middle, that’s your electricity bill. So believe me, as I said, the status quo balances straight out,” he said.

source: My Joy Online