The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), on the first day of its month-long debt-collection exercise, recovered GHȼ18.5 million from three state institutions.

Together, the House of Parliament, the Ghana Aiport Company Limited and Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, owed the state power distributor a total of GHȼ46.9 million.

Parliament was the first port of call. 

It paid GHȼ8.5 million of a total power debt of GHȼ13 million after an initial offer to pay GHȼ1 million was rejected by ECG.

It saved the legislature from being taken off the national grid.

The Manager of External Communications of the ECG, Laila Abubakari, said: “GHȼ5 million of the GHȼ8.5 million they promised will be paid by the Finance Ministry through the GIFMIS platform". 

"They have written us a check for the rest GHȼ3.5 million but we asked them to process it electronically because we are not accepting cheques or cash in this exercise.”

The second stop was GACL whose security personnel initially resisted the "invasion" of the company's premises.

A meeting between the two parties eventually resulted in GACL making an upfront payment of GHȼ10 million of its GHȼ28 million power debt with a promise to defray the balance of GHȼ18 million in two weeks.

The last stop for the day was the state broadcaster which owes GHȼ5.9 million.

According to the state broadcaster, the Ministry of Information had earlier reached an agreement with the Energy Ministry to pay the amount this year, after clearing some GHȼ17 million of the total debt last year.

All three institutions were spared being taken off the grid.

The ECG task force continues its rounds today, Tuesday, 21 March 2023.

ECG hopes to recover “100% of the entire GHȼ5.7 billion at the end of the nationwide exercise.”