The Minister for Energy, John Peter Amewu has strongly indicated that government will waste no time in reassuming the operations of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) if the new managers, Power Distribution Services (PDS) fail to meet their key performance indicators.
PDS is taking over the management and operations of the ECG after Meralco consortium, a major shareholder in PDS won a bid to manage the ECG.
Speaking at a handing over ceremony in Accra, Energy Minister Mr. Amewu stated that the operations of PDS will closely be monitored to ensure performance delivery.
“I wish to ensure the concessionaire, PDS that I am going to keep my eagle eye on the key performance indicators set out on the transaction agreement, and for some reason all those challenges enumerated above on any single occasion during the that you are expected to deliver effective service will come undone, an exit to the door will clearly be an option “ he said.
Mr. Amewu stated that PDS is expected to improve the operations of ECG and return the company to profit in a short period.
The ECG private sector participation activity is one of five key projects activities that make up the ECG Financial and operational turnaround project under the 498 million dollars Ghana Compact two programme. The project is designed to strengthen the governance and management of ECG as well as undertake infrastructural and foundational investments designed to reduce technical, commercial and collection loses while improving service quality.
By this, PDS is expected to improve revenue collection, cut cost, and maintain stable power for two decades while injecting over 500 million dollars in to the power distributor.
On his part, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta was hopeful that with the takeoff of the PSP, government subvention in ECG will gradually reduce.
“We expect that this agreement will slowly remove the government support for ECG to make the company strong enough to stand on its own”
The Vice President of Meralco Philippines, Ireneo Acuna was of the view that the revision of shares from 20 percent local participation to 51 percent was is a laudable initiative taken by the Nana Addo government.
“When the second bidding conference was done and the government said they want to increase the local participants, we were the only company that was excited because we believe in that,” Mr. Acuna said.
PDS is a consortium of Ghanaian and two foreign companies. The Ghanaian component consists of TG Energy Solutions with 28 percent shares, Santa Power Ltd with 13 percent shares, and GTS Power with 10 percent shares. The others are Manila Electricity Company with 30 percent shares from the Philippines and Aenergia from Angola with 19 shares.