The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has been slapped with a GHS36,000 fine for failing to submit all bank and investment accounts it currently operates to the Commission.
This comes after the PURC found the bank accounts submitted by the ECG to be incomplete, contrary to the Order. 3.3 Submission of Information
The PURC had requested the tariff revenue allocation under the Cash Waterfall Mechanism (CWM), the provision of regulatory audit data, and the submission of information related to operational matters, as well as the provision of other regulatory audit data.
However, it found that “details of ECG’s bank accounts submitted were incomplete.” The Commission made three requests to the ECG with the timelines of March 25, March 27, and April 2, 2024.
“The Commission hereby imposes an initial regulatory charge of 3,000 penalty units on ECG in accordance with Regulation 45 of LI 2413, amounting to Thirty-six Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS36, 000).”
“ECG shall pay the initial regulatory charge of GHS36, 000 to the Commission on or before 22 April 2024.
Regarding the deadline for compliance, the PURC said that following the payment, “for every working day that the requested details remain outstanding, ECG shall pay an additional regulatory charge of 3,000 penalty units, calculated daily until the date of compliance.”
Meanwhile, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has issued a hefty penalties of GHS 5,868,000.00 on members of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) board who served from January 1 to March 18, 2024.
This action was brought because they violated Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413, which mandates prior notification to customers before any power outage.
“The Commission established from its analysis of data submitted by ECG that there were 4142 outages to consumers within ECG’s operational areas between January and March 2024. Out of this number, 165 representing 3.98% of the total outages were ECG-planned outages. Further analysis showed that of the 165 ECG planned outages, 40 were supported by public notices, while there were no notices for the remaining 125 outages.
“Further, 38 of the 40 notices did not comply with the requisite three-day statutory notice prescribed under Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413. This indicates that in 163 instances of planned outages, ECG did not comply with the law.”
