PDS takes over ECG from March 1

The operations and management of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) will from Friday, March 1 be taken over by Power Distribution Services Ghana (PDS). This comes in the wake of an agreement saw Meralco win a competitive bid for the quasi-privatisation of the country’s major power distribution firm. After the successful execution of the first Millennium Challenge Compact with the US government, Ghana was given six additional projects for the 2^nd Compact. Among the six is the controversial ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround Project (EFOT), which seeks to introduce a private firm to manage the operations of ECG for 20 years. After Meralco won the bid, it partnered Angolan company AEnergia SA and three indigenous Ghanaian firms – TG Energy Solutions Ghana Limited, Santa Power Limited and GTS Power Limited – to execute the project. The four firms, consequently, joined forces to form Power Distribution Services Ghana Limited (PDS) to execute the project. PDS is 51 per cent Ghanaian-owned and meets the requirement of government to take over ECG’s management. PDS is expected “to strengthen the governance, management and operations of ECG and improve the delivery of power to end users to support socio-economic growth in Ghana”. The public, particularly customers of ECG, has therefore been informed that PDS will be the electricity service provider in all of ECG’s operational areas in the southern distribution zone. Nonetheless, ECG will continue to operate as a bulk energy trader and the asset owner, a statement jointly signed by ECG’s Managing Director Samuel Boakye-Appiah and PDS’s Chairman Philip Ayesu said. Source: editors.3news.com|Ghana