The Amansie South District Chief Executive (DCE), Clement Opoku, is crying foul over allegations that he has been cut off from the national power grid over illegal connection and non-payment of bills.
In an interview with the Independent Ghana, he said the claims are inaccurate and a calculated attempt to tarnish his image.
” I’ve never said anywhere that I’ll not pay bills. ECG got furious because I said they don’t bring bills,” he said on Saturday, April 7, 2023.
Clarifying matters, he explained that the action taken against him by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), as captured in the media reports, is only a move to sabotage him for criticising the work of the company.
“On March 21, 2023, I was a panel on Angel FM’s morning show dubbed Angel in the morning. Among the topics to be discussed was the ECGs revenue mobilisation exercise. ECG was on the table; that they were disconnecting people for non-payment of bills and what have you. So when it got to my turn, as part of my submissions, I said in my opening that ECG is not a serious company.”
According to him, he questioned why the ECG had sat aloof and overlooked non-payment of bills for several months without taking any concrete steps to retrieve the debts until this exercise which commenced on March 20, 2023.
He stated that: “it appears that they [ECG] are not serious with what they are doing because, one, how can someone owe you for 6, 7, 8, 9 months and then you (ECG) still supplies the person with power. If it’s your private company that you are managing, would you have done that? Because it’s for the state so you [ECG officials] sit there unconcerned and think that people should rush to your offices and come and pay, you are enjoying monopoly.”
He cited his district Amansie South, which is a rural district, for instance, and questioned how a peasant farmer in the area who makes barely enough a day to cater for himself and his family would be able to pay off an accumulated ECG debt of about six hundred cedis at a go, which in his view, is not feasible.
“That person can’t afford to pay and when he or she is unable to pay, then you say you’re cutting off the supply of power to the person’s residence, and that’s so wrong. It’s unfair treatment to anyone,” he lamented on the show.
Additionally, he disclosed that he had not paid any electricity bill at his official residence since he assumed office as DCE because he had not been served any bill by the ECG.
“I was so emphatic that they are not serious because in my district we don’t even have an ECG office there so if you to pay your bills you’ll have to drive to the nearby district before you can be able to do so which shouldn’t be the case and I made reference to my official residence that if what I’m saying is not true, they should come to my official residence and come and check. Ever since I moved in as DCE in 2020 till March 21, 2023, I’ve never seen any bill coming from ECG and so they should sit up, up their game and work towards it.”
He said this statement, however, got to ECG Management in Accra, who got enraged by his comments and stormed his Amansie South residence “in rambo style” to disconnect power at the premises.
“Their actions show that they are just in for witch hunting [but] my point still remains that they should bring bills and we will pay. Besides, I don’t pay bills by myself, it’s the government that does so. So if we are not being served bills, how are we going to pay?” he added.
This comes in response to earlier reports that the Electricity Company of Ghana has disconnected the power supply to the official residence of the District Chief Executive of Amansie South District in the Ashanti Region.
According to a myjoyonline.com report, at least four floodlights were on when the ECG Revenue Protection taskforce visited at 3:42 PM.
Led by the Ashanti Regional Director of ECG, David Boadi Asamoah, the taskforce took away electrical cables used for the illegal service connection.