The Management of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) yesterday held a marathon meeting to plot technical details as to how to collect huge amounts of debt owed the company by a number of state and private institutions.
The managers of the company also made frantic efforts to reconcile their accounts to determine the quantum of indebtedness of consumers.
The crisis meeting was prompted by a report released by the Tiger Eye Investigative Team, led by Anas Aremeyaw Anas, on debts owed the ECG amounting to �400 million as of November 2011.
Top officials of the ECG were tight-lipped when the Daily Graphic sought to find out the outcome of the meeting, which had started as early as 9 a.m.
The Public Relations Manager of the ECG, Ms Gloria Sakyi, told the Daily Graphic that the revelation was a serious matter and, therefore, it was important for the management to get the facts right before coming out with any response.
Among the companies cited by the report which paid their bills regularly was the Graphic Communications Group Limited.
According to the report, some of the institutions and companies owing the ECG are: the Office of the President, GH�675,805.55; the State House (Parliament), GH�635,781.31; the Police Headquarters, GH�393,736.65; the Ghana Water Company Limited,
GH�617,105.51; the Ministry of Finance, GH�524,924.67; Vodafone, GH�886,814.15; MTN, GH�349,811.19; Airtel, GH�56,232.48.
Others are the University of Ghana, GH�4,388,500.63; the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, GH�2,981,228.93; the University of Cape Coast, GH�1,871,556.40; ECOBANK, GH�320,275.56; the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, GH�238,621.89; Movenpick Hotel, GH�577,631.07, and Vienna City, GH�44,435.14.
The report also exposed the maladministration, massive corruption, pilfering and plain stealing at the ECG, resulting in the nation losing millions of Ghana cedis.
Some companies, instead of paying their bills in full to the ECG, paid paltry sums to selected ECG officials and kept piling up their bills for years.
After three or more years, some companies fictitiously fold up and their bills are declared a bad debt by the ECG.
They then move their machinery and operations to another location under a different company name and the cycle continues.
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