New ECG board charged to ensure sanity in operations

A NINE-member Governing Board for the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) was inaugurated in Accra yesterday, with a call on the members to instil sanity into the operations of the company.

This is in view of the loss of public confidence in the ECG in the wake of the recent exposé of massive rot and corruption in the company.

The Energy Minister, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, who made the call, also tasked the board to be courageous in instilling discipline into all aspects of the company’s operations.
The new board, chaired by Ms Perpetual Darfour, has Barima Nana Kwame Nkyi XII, the Omanhene of the Assin Apimanin Traditional Area; Mr Stephen Sumani Nayina, a former Northern Regional Minister, and Mr Alfred Agbesi, the Member of Parliament for Ashaiman, as members.

Others are Mr Hutton Mensah, the acting Managing Director of the ECG; Mr Samuel Cudjoe, Mr Alhassan Abdullai, Bernard Allotey-Jacobs, the Central Regional Communications Director of the National Democratic Congress, and Ing Nana Kwame Duodu, a former Vice-President of the Ghana Institution of Engineers.

The reconstitution of the board followed an earlier dissolution of the old one in December 2011 after an investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas’s report indicted some officials and workers for alleged acts of corruption.

The report also faulted mobile telecommunication companies, banking institutions and some state agencies mandated to collect revenue on behalf of the ECG for evading the payment of revenue to the company.

Dr Oteng-Adjei, who used the opportunity to apologise to the public for the unacceptable mess at the ECG, also charged the board not to let “money” drive their goals.
“Let your integrity protect you, in spite of the recent challenges, but rise above the storm in the interest of Ghanians and the oath of secrecy that you have sworn,” he said.

Ms Darfour admitted that the inauguration of the board had come at a time when the company was faced with enormous challenges that had subjected it to public ridicule.
She gave an assurance that the board would work assiduously to reposition the ECG as a world-class electricity distribution company.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Sat Feb 4, 2012