The Government of Ghana’s indebtedness to the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) currently stands at ¢1.06 billion, a report submitted to the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, requesting for an increment in tariff has revealed.

This is said to be crippling the operations of the company.

“As of December 2021, the Government of Ghana owed NEDCo about ¢1.069 billion with subsidies and street lighting in bills. These debts have made it difficult for NEDCo to meet its debt obligations to suppliers of electricity,” NEDCo said in its 2022-2026 Tariff proposals submitted to Public Utilities Regulatory Commission for consideration.

Out of the amount, ¢75.083 million represents subsidies that the government has not been able to pay.

NEDCo supplies electricity to the government through state institutions including Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that are connected to the national grid.

While prepaid meters are being installed for customers in the private sector, those in the government sector are still on credit meters, resulting in the accumulation of the huge debt.

Sadly, the government has not been paying the MDA debts as expected.

Presently, NEDCo has a customer population of about 1,136,050 as of the end of 2021.

This comprises 84.96% of residential customers, 15.03% of non-residential and 0.01% of Special Load Tariff (SLT) customers.

Additionally, about 46% of the total customer population (516,547) are lifeline customers who consume power at GHp32.6060/kwh which is far below the total of the current approved DSC rate of GHp31.5307/kwh, TSC GHp7.9846/kWh and BGT tariff of GHp33.7957/kwh, which is GHp73.311/kwh.