The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has fined board members of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) who served in office from January 1 to March 18 2024, GH¢5, 868,000.00 for failing to publish statutory notice of planned outages.
The board includes the ECG MD, Samuel Mahama Dubik, Keli Gadzekpo, who resigned as board chairman three weeks ago, Frank Annor Dompreh and five others.
PURC in a March 18 letter had directed the ECG to issue a load-shedding timetable by April 2, 2024.
It also demanded that the ECG submit the total number of planned outages it undertook between January and March.
However, this was disregarded without an explanation.
According to the commission, this is against Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413.
The Commission per Regulation 45 of L.I. 2413, imposed a regulatory charge of 3,000 penalty units on ECG for each of the 163 breaches, amounting to GH¢ 5,868,000.00.
“The commission has determined that having regard to the nature of ECG’s ownership and business, the imposition of the penalty of GH¢ 5,868,000.00 on ECG would be counter-productive, as payment from ECG’s revenue would have a rebounding adverse effect on quality of service and consumers who pay tariffs to the company,” it said.
It said these board members were responsible for providing strategic guidance to ensure that consumers received safe, adequate, efficient, reasonable, and non-discriminatory services.
For that reason, the PURC is holding the Board Members of ECG liable for the payment of GH¢ 5,868,000.00.
It further stated that the board must pay the amount into a dedicated fuel account under the joint control of the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Finance on or before May 30, 2024.
PURC also fined ECG GH¢36,000 for failing to submit all bank and investment accounts it currently operates to the commission.
The information requested relates to the tariff revenue allocation under the Cash Waterfall Mechanism (CWM), the provision of regulatory audit data and the submission of information related to operational matters, as well as the provision of other regulatory audit data.