Members of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) board who served from January 1 to March 18, 2024, have been fined a hefty five million, eight hundred and sixty-eight thousand Ghana cedis (GHS 5,868,000.00) by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC).
They were found to have violated Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413, which mandates that customers be notified in advance of any power outage.
The current ECG Managing Director, Samuel Dubik Mahama, and Keli Gadzekpo, who resigned as Board Chair on March 26, are among those impacted by the penalties.
The ECG was ordered by PURC in a letter dated March 18 to provide a load-shedding timetable by April 2, 2024; this directive was flagrantly broken without justification.
In addition, the Commission requested in a letter dated March 18 that the ECG provide a list of all scheduled outages that it conducted from January to March.
In a letter dated Monday, April 15, PURC stated that 4142 outages were conducted during the given period based on its review of the data presented.
“The Commission determined that, between January and March 2024, there were 4142 customer outages within ECG’s operational areas based on its review of data that ECG presented. A total of 165 outages, or 3.98% of the total, were scheduled by the ECG. Further research revealed that of the 165 scheduled ECG outages, 40 had public announcements in support of them, whilst the remaining 125 outages had none.
Furthermore, 38 out of the 40 notices were not sent under the required three-day statutory notice as stated in L.I. 2413 Regulation 39. This suggests that ECG broke the law during 163 scheduled outages.
According to the authority, ECG would be fined 3,000 units for each violation it made in disregard for the timeline order.
The penalties were also to be applied to the board members of ECG because of their shareholding arrangement.
“The Commission, under Regulation 45 of L.I. 2413, hereby imposes a regulatory charge of 3,000 penalty units on ECG for each of the 163 breaches, amounting to Five Million, Eight Hundred and Sixty-Eight Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS 5,868,000.00), for failure to comply with the three-day statutory notice required under Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413.
“The Commission has determined that having regard to the nature of ECG’s ownership and business, the imposition of the penalty of Five Million, Eight Hundred and Sixty-Eight Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS 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.”
The nine board members have up to May 30, 2024, to pay the fine “into a dedicated fuel account under the joint control of the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Finance.”
