The Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Dubik Mahama, has described as unfair comments by the Minority in Parliament that the state is selective in paying the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) as regards debt owed them.
The Ranking Member on the Mines and Energy Committee in Parliament, John Abdulai Jinapor, over the week, accused the Ministry of Finance of discrimination in the release of payments to the IPPs.
“The Finance Minister instead of dealing with the Chamber of IPPs is engaged in selective and discriminatory payment, selecting some preferred IPPs, paying them and leaving them to their own fate,” he had stated.
This followed a threat by the Chamber of IPPs to shut down all plants if the over $1.7 billion debt owed them by the country’s foremost power-distribution firm, ECG, is not settled.
This has since been resolved and the IPPs have been partly settled of the debt.
But speaking on TV3‘s The Keypoints regarding the Minority’s statement on selective payment, Mr Dubik Mahama lamented it was “unfortunate” for that to be made, especially when negotiations were ongoing.
“These are some of the statement that I think are so unfair because if you make this statement is based on what?” he asked.
“It’s like having five children and thinking that all your children are the same. All your children are not the same.
“Look at all of them across board and look at what happens when something happens,” he observed on Saturday, July 1.
The Managing Director of ECG stopped short of giving details on payments made to each individual IPP but maintained, “I honestly think it is not a fair statement to make because in my candid opinion there’s 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 an unfair statement. You don’t make statements like that in public.”