The Public Utility Workers’ Union (PUWU) and the Ministry of Power are set for a crunch meeting tomorrow on concerns raised regarding the planned concession arrangement for Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

General Secretary of PUWU, Mr Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi yester­day told The Finder that the outcome of tomorrow’s meeting would deter­mine their next line of action.

Staff of ECG embarked on a two- day strike which started last Friday and ended yesterday, and customers of ECG were hard hit by the strike.

All services were suspended and customers whose credit ran out were stranded at ECG offices in their bid to buy prepaid credit.

Tomorrow’s meeting has become necessary as an earlier one convened on September 2 between ECG offi­cials and members of PUWU failed to arrive at a consensus.

The workers are livid over con­cerns of possible job losses due to government’s decision to cede part of management of the electricity com­pany to a private entity.

Mr Nyantakyi explained that PUWU is going to tomorrow’s meet­ing with an open mind to listen to gov­ernment’s response to their concerns.

The Millennium Development Au­thority (MiDA) has shortlisted six companies, out of which one will eventually be selected as the conces­sionaire.

The request for proposals docu­ment was issued to the shortlisted en­tities on Tuesday, August 30, 2016.

MiDA requires that the acceptable PSP should have local participation at both ownership and management lev­els.

Two of the companies are consor­tiums while the remaining four are bidding individually.

The two consortiums have Ghana­ian addresses, an indication that they are registered in Ghana and probably have Ghanaian interests.

The companies are Manila Electric Company from the Philippines; Ch Group/Edf Sa/Lmi Holdings/Veolia Sa with Ghanaian address; Engie Energie Services, SA; from France, Bxc Com­pany Ghana Ltd /Xiaocheng Technol­ogy Stock Company Limited, registered and operating in Ghana; Enel S.P.A. from Italy; and Tata Power Company Limited from India.

ECG management did not see final draft of PSP

Mr Nyantakyi told The Finder that it was agreed that the final draft of Re­quest for Proposal (RSP) be presented to ECG management for perusal and comments but that did not happen.

He stated that ECG management expressed surprise that the RSP has been issued to shortlisted companies without them seeing the final draft.

An official of MiDA said the draft RSP was submitted to all stakeholders, who perused and submitted their com­ments.

MiDA officials then sat with ECG management to address their concerns in detail.

When that process ended, a ques­tion was raised about the way forward and it was decided that MiDA board should decide the way forward.

According to the MiDA officials, the board of MiDA decided that MiDA could go ahead,and issue the RSP.

With this explanation, MiDA offi­cials categorically rejected PUWU’s claims that the final draft was to be submitted to ECG management before issuing RSP.

The official at MiDA noted that the ECG board chairperson represents ECG on the MiDA board and, there­fore, such a decision should have been communicated to the ECG manage­ment by their representative.

Six cabinet ministers sit on MiDA board.

MiDA/PUWU planned meeting

He said MiDA and PUWU were scheduled to meet on Thursday, Sep­tember 8, 2016 to discuss their con­cerns.

However, he said MiDA’s decision to go ahead and issue out the request for proposals document to shortlisted companies even before listening to PUWU demonstrates betrayal of trust.

However, MiDA said the PSP is not final since an Addendum could b£ added if there was the need for review.

Therefore, MiDA believes the planned meeting with PUWU could still go ahead.