The ranking member on the Health Committee of Parliament and MP for Juaboso, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, has called on the government to investigate electricity consumption within the health sector to ascertain the level of indebtedness of the facilities to the power distribution company, ECG.
However, he maintained that the government should, as a matter of urgency, work to pay off the debts if these consumptions were used for “proper healthcare delivery.”
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has warned that it would cut off some 91 hospitals nationwide from the national grid due to their indebtedness to the company.
Mr. Akandoh, reacting to the development on TV3’s Ghana Tonight programme yesterday [March 13], underscored the significance of the government ensuring that these hospitals are not disconnected from the national grid, stating that, “it would have a dire consequences” for healthcare delivery.
“Can you imagine somebody has traveled from more than 20, 30, 40 kilometres to a hospital and they say they don’t have light? Can you imagine somebody undergoing a procedure and there is no light?” he asked, stating that “we must reflect on some of these things and then investigate whether those utilities have been abused.”
“We have to investigate,” he emphasised.
“If indeed these consumptions are for proper healthcare delivery, then I think the government must reflect on it again to pay, to settle those utilities off in their books. The government must pay,” he stressed.
According to the ECG, the 91 hospitals, including 37 Military Hospital, Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge), the Police Hospital, and the University of Ghana Hospital, amongst others, owe an estimated amount of GH¢261 million in total.
Meanwhile, the ranking member of the Energy Committee of Parliament, John Jinapor, has revealed that the ECG owes a staggering debt of $1.5 billion.
Jinapor attributed this substantial debt to ECG’s failure to meet payments to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and its inability to fully settle bills for purchased electricity.
He further criticised ECG’s purported wasteful expenditure on unnecessary supplies such as cables, dysfunctional meters, and what he deems undeserved contracts.
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“ECG owes $1.5 billion, when they take the money from Ghanaians, they fail to pay the IPPs and use the funds to do whatever they want with it and they fail to pay the full price of the power they purchase and PURC has brought a report that when ECG comes in possession of a substantial amount of money, they refuse to pay the debt they owe, they spend the money recklessly, and this is an official report from the PURC.
“Some of the things they buy, they don’t even need them, and now they want to be buying fuel, which is not even their core duty, all these are reasons the finances aren’t adding up,” he said.
However, pressure has been mounted on both the government and the ECG to release a load-shedding timetable as the erratic power supply (also known as dumsor) continues to bite hard.