Agona Swedru (C/R), Feb 28, GNA- The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) would as from March 1st, 2007 suspend the nation wide load-shedding exercise as the country prepare to celebrate her Golden Jubilee Anniversary on March 6, 2007.

Mr Jude Osafo Adu-Amankwa, Managing Director of ECG disclosed this at Agona Swedru when he interacted with staff of the company during a tour of the Central Region.

District Managers from Winneba, Kasoa, Apam and Saltpond attended the meeting.

He however, said if by 14 March, 2007 the arrangement being made by the government for power supply from some neighbouring countries materialises, then the load-shedding exercise would be suspended indefinitely, but if not it would continue.

He said the country would host two important events, the Africa Union Summit in July, 2007 and CAN 2008 in February next year, and urged the "technicians of the company to view these as a wake up call to stand up to the test".

Mr Adu-Amankwa expressed regret about the damages the load-shedding exercise might have caused to the properties of Ghanaians, and said that was the only way the company could save the total collapse of the Volta River Authority (VRA) and appealed to the public to bear with them. He said the load shedding had damaged some of the expensive giant machines of the company at Tema, Maamobi, Mac-Carthy Hill all in Accra and some areas in Kumasi.

The Managing Director noted that the ECG pay 183 billion cedis a month or 45 billion cedis a week to the VRA as power cost. He said the ECG is only able to collect 44 billion cedis revenue a week due to the failure of consumers to pay their bills as a result of load-shedding.

He said this has led to an accumulated debt of one trillion cedis owed by his company to the VRA and Value Added Tax Service (VAT). He said the situation is affecting its operation and appealed to the government to give them the necessary support to enable the ECG come out from its present predicaments.

Mr Adu-Amankwah advised the staff to intensify their revenue collection and appealed to consumers to honour their bills to enable the company render quality services to them.

He said plans are far advanced to install a 33 kV transformer to replace the existing 11KV transformer at the VRA sub-station at Winneba-Junction to improve power supply in the area.

Mr Bismark Awuku, Agona District Manager of ECG appealed to the Managing Director to help Swedru get pre-paid meters to enhance the collection of bills and improve their operations.

He requested for assistance to renovate the ECG offices at Swedru. 28 Feb 07