ECG Not Sold to PDS - Managing Director

By Julius Yao Petetsi

THE Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has not metamorphosed into Power Distribution Services following the completion of the concessionaire agreement, the Managing Director of the company, Samuel Boakye-Appiah, has clarified.

What the company has done instead is that it has ceded its distribution duties to the PDS, Mr Boakye-Appiah explained at a sensitisation workshop for some selected journalists in Accra yesterday.

It was widely thought that the ECG seized to be when PDS took over the power distribution duties of the ECG but the Managing Director of the company said that was not the case.

"We wish to emphasise that neither ECG's assets nor its liabilities were transferred to PDS. ECG has retained all the network assets and is also liable for debts incurred prior to the transfer of its operations to the PDS.

"We must emphasise that ECG has not been sold. ECG has not changed to PDS. ECG is ECG and PDS is PDS. They are two different entities playing different roles in the power sector.

"PDS Ghana Limited is now responsible for electrical network operations including regular maintenance, fault repairs, commercial operations which include billing, revenue collection, new services connections and investments, rehabilitation, and network expansions.

"PDS Ghana Limited as a distributor will handle and manage on behalf of ECG, all legacy issues, revenue collection and unpaid bills prior to the transfer date on March 1, 2019," Mr Boakye-Appiah stressed.

The ECG on the other hand, Mr Boakye-Appiah said would continue to operate as a Bulk Energy Trader, energy exporter after satisfying the domestic market and a Responsible Asset Owner.

Apart from being the bulk trader to the PDS, the ECG now provides training and consultancy services among other future business lines, Mr Boakye-Appiah said.

In this regard, he said, the ECG's training school has now become the point of training for engineers from the West African sub-region and that "ECG will leverage on its 50 years of experience and the huge intellectual capital at its disposal to provide training and consultancy services focusing on the energy sector.

The company, Mr Boakye-Appiah said, "will continue to play a key role in Ghana's energy sector as a responsible asset owner safeguarding the value and conditions of the distribution network and ensuring PDS complies with the concession agreement.

According to him, in accordance with government's directive, 6,400 staff of ECG were transferred from the company to PDS on the same conditions of service as are the 122 staff who remained with the ECG.

In August 2014, Government of Ghana signed the Compact II with the Millennium Challenge Corporation involving US$498 million as the sum for six energy sector projects including the leasing of some ECG assets to PDS.

The ECG on July 3, 2018, signed the 20-year Lease and Assignment Agreement and Bulk Supply Agreement with the concessionaire PDS which took effect on March 1, 2019.

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