President John Mahama has assured Organised Labour that he does not intend to privatize the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
Speaking at the May Day celebrations in Accra, the President stated that under his administration, ECG would enter into a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) to revive and strengthen its operations.
“The ECG has been facing a culture of poor governance over the last eight years, with a debt of 68 billion cedis and rising. If we don’t take drastic action, our power sector will collapse. We can only bring down power tariffs by improving efficiency in power distribution,” he said.
“Let me assure you, it is not my intention to privatize ECG as an institution. Our focus is on a public-private collaboration to inject efficiency into our downstream electricity distribution system.”
However, the assurance has failed to convince the leadership of the Public Utilities Workers Union (PUWU) and the Public Services Workers Union (PSWU).
General Secretary of PUWU, Timothy Nyame, expressed skepticism about the President’s remarks.
“PPP and privatization are the same. Once I hear PPP, it means they’ve only changed the name, but it still involves elements of privatization. All we’re saying to His Excellency is that we have the competencies needed to manage ECG ourselves,” he said.
General Secretary of the PSWU, Bernard Adjei, urged the President to involve the unions in shaping the PPP arrangement.
“Let’s engage to determine what form of private participation is appropriate. As stakeholders in the industry, we will scrutinize any plan and contribute our input. We trust that the President will listen, and that the energy sector will be freed from the grip of political cronies and profiteers who are exploiting it at the expense of ordinary Ghanaians,” he said.
Both PUWU and PSWU maintain that the proposed partnership is privatization in disguise and have vowed to resist any move that threatens public ownership of ECG.
