Pay Your Debt And Stop Inciting Ghanaians Against NEDCo – IES TO Gov’t

The Institute of Energy Security (IES), has accused the government of inciting the public against the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) as they push for the government to pay the debt they are owing the energy company.

This comes following a statement released from the energy ministry indicating that NEDCo failed to utilize some $54 million meant to help their operations and to ensure energy security in the entire country.

Speaking to Class FM on the issue, Executive Director of the IES, Mr. Paa Kwasi Anamua Sakyi explained that the money government offered NEDCo was never going to help them in any way because it wouldn’t yield any returns. hence NEDCo made the right decision by now using the funds.

“We are saying that the public statement that the energy ministry did was unnecessary and was probably meant to incite the public against NEDCo. We would rather applaud NEDCo staff that they stood to their grounds and refused this offer. An offer that will not do them any good”.

“You are giving them 54 million to support them to make their system more efficient and reduce losses. Out of this money, almost $12 million is going to be paid for a transactional advisor and also to a management contractor. Leaving them with $44 million dollars to read through their system”, Mr. Anamoah Sakyi said.

He continued “We think this money NEDCo doesn’t need it. They rather need the government to pay them their debt of almost GH¢800 million. In dollar terms, it is about $157 million. If the government is able to liquidate its debt to NEDCo, they have enough and more than enough to read through their system and they won’t need the 46 million from MIDA or any other private player”.

He further shared that the government should not hand over NEDCo to a private company because they are capable enough to run their own affairs. According to him, they showed that by saving the country from another energy insecurity situation when they refused to use the finds the energy ministry provided to them.