The Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Dubik Mahama, has disclosed that Senior High Schools across the country collectively owe the company over GH₵45 million.
Mr. Mahama’s statement follows the recent disconnection of power at the Accra Academy Senior High School due to indebtedness.
According to him, the exercise undertaken in the aforementioned school was part of a broader nationwide initiative to recover outstanding debts.
The ECG boss expressed concern about the escalating debt stock from various customers, emphasizing the necessity for prompt actions to address the issue.
“Currently, the schools’ bill is pushing towards almost GHC45m in arrears,” Mr Dubik Mahama told TV3 in an interview, adding “Across the nation, put everything together we should be in the region of GH₵2.5bn debt based on debt stock that I am seeing” he noted in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on Citi Breakfast Show.
Apologizing for any inconvenience caused, Mr. Dubik Mahama assured that the disconnection at Accra Academy was not the primary objective of the company.
“For Accra Academy and co, I am sorry for what happened yesterday, I know it was a traumatizing experience. That was not the main aim of the company. I had a conversation with the Director General of the Ghana Education Service, and he has promised to have a meeting with me before the end of this week, so we can find a long-lasting solution to these issues and how to treat them going forward,” Mr Mahama stated.
The ECG on Tuesday, February 21, revealed that Accra Academy Senior High School was disconnected from the power grid due to an outstanding debt of GH¢400,000.
In an interview on Citi FM, Paul Agraga, the head of prosecution at ECG, explained that the disconnection is part of an ongoing initiative to recover outstanding payments owed to the company.
“Normally, we have a team that goes around once a while to inform our customers of their debts so they do not accumulate and so if you take Accra Academy for example, they owe over GH¢400,000 to the ECG” he noted.