The Minister-designate for Railways, John Peter Amewu, says government has paid in full all the money it owed the power supplier Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

He told Parliament's Appointments Committee during his vetting Wednesday that this includes debt from Municipal, Metropolitan and District Assemblies.

“All the debts that it [government] owned ECG has been paid by the Ministry of Finance and I think that is a very good thing that government has done,” Mr Amewu said.

The former Energy Minister explained that there were numerous factors that contributed to the accumulation of debts in the sector.

In May last year, Mr Amewu told the media that government has a credit balance of ¢500 million with ECG.

This, he said, was after government settled all of its indebtedness to the power supplier including the ¢2.63 billion it inherited on assumption of office from the Mahama administration.

Aside from the consumption of power by MMDAs, ministries and other state agencies, the Hohoe MP stated that losses incurred because of distribution and supply.

According to him, the use of obsolete gadgets with some dated 50 years back among others has contributed to some of the debts.

“Before I left the ministry we put in a lot of measures. With the assistance of the cabinet we came up with the energy recovery program, we apply to migrate some of the power plants that were previously feeding on heavy fuel.”

To reduce cost, Mr Amewu said most of the generations are running on gas, which is cheaper.

He stated that some of these measures put in place are gradually addressing the debt in the energy sector.

However, “ECG is currently owing government an about ¢400 million which is yet to be reconciled,” he added.