MINORITY IS CRITICIZED BY ECG HEAD FOR IPP REMARKS

Samuel Dubik Mahama, the managing director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), criticized the Minority in Parliament for making unfair comments about the state's treatment of Independent Power Producers (IPPs) in terms of debt owed to them.

 

John Abdulai Jinapor, the ranking member of the Parliament's Mines and Energy Committee, has accused the Ministry of Finance of discriminating in the distribution of payments to IPPs over the past week.

 

 

He had said, "The Finance Minister is engaging in selective and discriminatory payment, selecting some preferred IPPs, paying them and leaving them to their own fate, instead of dealing with the Chamber of IPPs."

 

This came after the Chamber of IPPs threatened to shut down all facilities if the approximately $1.7 billion debt owed to them by the top electricity distribution company in the nation, ECG, was not paid.

 

Since then, the issue has been resolved, and the IPPs' debt has been partially forgiven.

 Threats to shut down are dropped by IPPs after ECG resolves debt

However, Mr. Dubik Mahama remarked that it was "unfortunate" for such to be made.

He questioned, "These are some of the statements that I think are so unfair because if you make this statement is based on what?"

 It's comparable to having five children and assuming that they are all the same. Your kids are not all the same.

 

"Look at all of them across board and look at what happens when something happens," he said on Saturday, July 1.

 

However, he continued, "I honestly think it is not a fair statement to make because in my honest opinion there is an issue, if we are trying to solve the issue and imagine from that statement, we walk to a meeting with the IPPs and nobody wants to talk to us on the roundtable.

"That's a false assertion. Such claims are inappropriate to express in public.