From ECG to PDS

The main electricity supplier, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has been taken over by a new company, Power Distribution Service (PDS). There was speculation since the later part of last year that the government was trying to privatise power supply in Ghana, but government officials vehemently denied it.

Photo Credit

On 27th February, Meralco Consortium, a major shareholder in PDS took over the ECG after they won the bid. PDS promised to inject $580 million dollars to turn around operations in Ghana and help stabilise the country's power supply and distribution. Workers of ECG were assured by the government that their jobs or positions won't be affected by this takeover.

From 2013 to 2015, Ghana experienced erratic power outages and the government gave the assurance that, with PDS coming, this will be a thing of the past. The power outages which was termed "dumsor", led to a lot of companies collapsing and many people losing their jobs and the economy is still yet to recover from that. A lot of companies had to cut down cost and lay off some employees to fund the cost of alternative sources of power.

Over the past few weeks, there's been intermittent power supply to most parts of Accra, Cape Coast and Koforidua. Citizens have been asking if *"dumsor" is back. A lot of Ghanaians have taken to social media, radio and television stations to express their displeasure at this outages. Many people have made the claim that, from what they've seen of PDS, then ECG was much better.

As usual, government officials have been seen and heard almost everywhere defending PDS and saying that, the issues will be resolved pretty soon and PDS will settle soon. If the facilities already existed before they came and the workers are still there, why is there a need for PDS to settle down before power distribution can be stabilised is the million dollar question being asked by most Ghanaians.

The government has still not cleared the air on whether ECG has been sold indefinitely or not. They only say there's a partnership with a private company, and that PDS now has a major stake in ECG and hence, the name change. Most Ghanaians including me only knew about the name change after the power outages started and PDS came out to apologise.

It's amazing to see that, a big company such as the ECG which supplies the whole of Ghana will be sold or partnered with a private company without even the parliament of Ghana being aware. Governance has now been limited to only those in power, and they decide everything without consideration.