Minister of Energy Boakye Agyarko has dismissed suggestions that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) will be privatized under Compact II of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

He explained that the country’s major energy-distribution body will have its assets rather leased for 20 years under the Compact.

Mr Agyarko made this known on Tuesday, May 23 at a bidders’ conference for ECG’s concession in Accra. The conference is aimed at selecting a final concessionaire for ECG.

The Energy Minister insisted that government will continue to own 100 per cent of the assets of the Company. Government is under pressure to meet the deadline embedded in the Compact to have ECG privately controlled.

A private sector participation (PSP) stakeholder committee was inaugurated by the Minister early in May, 2017 ahead of the Tuesday’s conference.

Government has resolved to give at least 51 per cent to Ghanaian-owned entities under the deal. There have been agitations among the work force of the Company over the deal, much of which has to do with job security.

But the Ambassador of the US, which is releasing the funds for the project, Robert Porter Jackson, at a meeting by the American Chamber of Commerce last year, said: “I don’t think that any worker of ECG will lose their job as the compact comes into force. What I can say for certain is it that the compact makes it clear that during the first five years of the compact, probably until 2022, every worker has his or her job guaranteed unless the person commits a crime or any serious misconduct. So for the next five years their employment is guaranteed”.