A former Power Minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor is advising the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to increase its efficiency if it wants to prevent financial losses.

According to him, ECG usually incurred losses due to technical and  commercial mishaps during power distribution.

This, he says, negatively impacts profit.

“The way out is first ECG has to improve its efficiency. ECG losses about 30% of power they buy either in technical loses or commercialise loses and their margin is not 30%,” he said.

Speaking on Midday News on Joy FM, he explained that the percentage which is usually lost by the company is more than its expected profit margin which accounted for constant debt.

 “Very few industries in this country will have a margin of 30%. So if you are losing 30% of what you buy, you are definitely not going to be able to pay for it in the long term,”  he said.

The Pru East MP’s comments come on the back of constant threats by the Chamber of Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

The IPPs say they will shutdown power supply if government fails to pay at least 30% of monies owned them by June 30.

Dumsor looms: Chamber of IPPs directs members to cut power supply from July 1, 2023

The Managing Director of ECG, Samuel Mahama swiftly negotiated a deal with the IPPs which made them rescind on their decision.

IPPs agree to suspend shutdown after engagement with ECG

On the back of this, Dr Donkor says the company must think of long term solutions to resolve the potential power crisis.

Highlighting some solutions, he said “ECG itself has to reduce technical and commercial losses to the barest minimum. Once we do not have an emergency situation, we should be looking at efficiency in generation,” he added.

He stressed that “as we speak the Kpone Termal plant owned by VRA is a single cycle plant that is in need of a heat recovery unit so that the cost of generation there will come down.