ECG to sue sports authority over GHC600,000 Esipong debt

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November 3, 2015 4:24 PM

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The Western Regional Office of The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has intensified attempts to recover debt owed them by the National Sports Authority (NSA) for t power used by the Sekondi stadium.

Allsports.com.gh investigations reveals that the ECG are chasing after a total sum of Six Hundred and Seventy Eight Thousand, Three Hundred and Ninety Eight Ghana Cedis and Thirty Five Pesewas (GHC 678,398.35) in unpaid bills since the stadium was constructed in 2008.

Government on behalf of the NSA was responsible for the payment of bills incurred by the stadium from 2008 to December 2013, as government in January 2014 gave directive that all state institutions and agencies pay their own bills from that date. That meant state owned schools,hospitals,ministries among others were duty bound to pay their use of electricity. Government therefore will absorb a debt of GHC 279,526.38 from 2008 to 2013 as it share of the total cost.

This left the NSA with GHC 398,871.97 as it actual debt to the ECG for 2014 when they were disconnect finally in December 2014. The NSA later paid GHC 5,000 which leaves them with GHC 393,871.97 as their outstanding debt.

The Sekondi stadium according to the ECG operates as a Special Load Tariff (SLT) customer with a dedicated transformer at its premises.

Public Relations Officer of the Western Regional Office of the ECG, Philip Osei Bonsu in an exclusive interview with Allsports.com.gh revealed their decision to prosecute the NSA the two parties could not agree on a payment plan after almost a year of disconnecting the stadium. This he says, subsequently pushed the ECG to haul the NSA before court.

He said "what happen is when you are disconnected you come for us to sit down and agree on a payment plan. In the case of the NSA they've not done any such thing and they've been disconnected since December 2014 and it's almost a year now and they've not come for us to sit down and agree on any concrete payment plan so we are really left with no option than to use the law court to reclaim our moneys. He further explained their stance.

"The point is when you are disconnected it behooves on you the customer to take steps and the point is for us,once you are serve with what we call the "demand notice" that you owe us so make sure you come and pay. If you don't come the only option for us is to come in and disconnect you. So we've gone through that process and that's how come they are disconnected and after that we expect them to come and meet us because until we see any commitment from them there is no way we would reconnect the stadium unto the national grid.

"So it's for them to come and if they don't come then we take it that they just want to take us for granted so then we move to the law court and that's the stage we are now to move to the law court to get the court to compel them to pay our debt so that's what we are going to do" he revealed to Allsports.com.gh.

Mr. Osei Bonsu said the ECG's Western Regional Office has concluded their internal processes and documentations and will in the coming days forward the paperwork to their legal directorate at their head office in Accra.

"As is the arrangement in ECG, for us here in the Western Region, we would have to forward the details to our legal directorate in Accra and that is what we would want to do. We've already taken that decision to prosecute so we would just forward the information to our legal directorate in Accra and they would take it over from there" he reckoned.

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