The Public Agenda has learned that the PURC has imposed a fine of Gh¢ 202,640.00 on the country’s electricity distributor, ECG for breaching laws regarding the sale and purchase of prepaid power units. According to a statement by the PURC, the ECG breached LI 1861 and LI 1935.

If one considers that the workers’ action, called by their union was not sanctioned by management, then management itself becomes a victim of the circumstances, and so to punish the corporate entity will in no uncertain terms amount to putting the company in double jeopardy.

Even though PURC maintains that the penalty covers the Electricity Company of Ghana’s (ECG) refusal to provide contingency measures to ensure customers had access to pre-paid electricity services during the week of the industrial action, that position in the view of the Public Agenda is contestable because in the absence of the workers the directors could not have gone out to vend power themselves.

Public Agenda strongly believes consumers will be more sympathetic to the ECG workers than to the PURC should they learn the full facts leading to the industrial action.

Letters cited by the Public Agenda, suggest some attempt to arm-twist the PURC itself into accepting a proposed Tariff Methodology developed exclusively by MiDA and IFC. The tariff methodology in question, if accepted, will undermine the PURC’s mandate of providing guidelines for utility tariffs in Ghana.

In a letter dated May 6, 2016, addressed to the CEO of MiDA, and titled: Circulation Of Draft Tariff Methodology By Mida / IFC, the PURC said it has come to its notice that MiDA and its Transaction Advisor, the IFC have widely circulated a Draft Tariff Methodology in respect of the ECG planned Concession.

The letter quoted extensively from the PURC’s statute of establishment to support its claim to exclusive mandate with respect to tariff regulation, and directed MiDA and IFC to “take immediate steps to withdraw the said document in circulation and to put measures in place to avoid re-occurrence of the situation”.

The attempt by MiDA and IFC to usurp the tariff regulation mandate of PURC is not the only concern workers and other industry watchers have about the ongoing privatisation of ECG. The Transaction Adviser, IFC, has also been caught in a conflict of interest situation.

In its response to a demand to recuse itself from the transaction on grounds of the said conflict of interest, IFC wrote in a confidential document dated June 1 2016, indicating its readiness to “help find a mutually acceptable solution to the situation.”

The IFC argued that recusing itself could end its role as adviser to MiDA in the ECG PSP, and that to deprive MiDA of a transaction advisor at a critical time will create high risk for the PSP and expose MiDA Board members to wider reputational damage if the decision to proceed without a transaction adviser results in a bad or failed PSP outcome.

There are a lot more to suggest that the ECG workers were not fighting for their exclusive interest but for the larger national interest as well. This fact, the PURC is aware.

It is therefore unthinkable that the PURC will impose a fine on ECG. The absurdity is even more pronounce when one comes to think of it, in terms of a state agency imposing a fine on another state agency, because in the end it is the state that invariably pays the fine. The amount being demanded as fine could indeed go a long way to support the operations of ECG.

While Public Agenda stands by ECG management in this matter, the paper wishes to urge PURC to rather extend a helping hand to ECG in its efforts to recover huge sums of money owed it by the government, so as to improve on the quality of its service delivery.