PURC fines ECG GH₵5.8m 

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) can become counter-productive should it fail to honour regulatory sanctions after April 22, 2024, the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) has said. 

The counter-productiveness would arise through the payment of GH₵5.868 million penalties, should ECG fail to comply with the payment of a three-day statutory charge of GH₵36,000 to PURC.

“For failure to comply with the three-day statutory notice required under Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413, the Commission, in accordance with Regulation 45 of L.I. 2413, hereby imposes a regulatory charge of 3,000 penalty units on ECG for each of the 163 breaches, amounting to GH₵5,868,000,” PURC said in a regulatory order to ECG.

The Commission indicated that due to the nature of ECG’s ownership and business, the imposition of the penalty of GH₵5,868,000 on the Company would be counter-productive. 

The Commission said that would be so because the payment from ECG’s revenue would have a rebounding adverse effect on the quality of service and consumers who paid tariffs to the Company.

This development is because of ECG’s non-compliance with the Cash Waterfall Mechanism, non-compliance with regulatory request for data, and non-compliance with the PURC Consumer Service Regulations, 2020 (L.I. 2413).

Specifically, the Commission indicted that ECG had failed to comply with an order on Tariff Revenue Allocation under the Cash Waterfall Mechanism (CWM), which was due on March 25, 2024.

Again, ECG failed to honour the provision of Regulatory Audit Data and Submission of Information Related to Operational Matters, March 27, 2024, as well as the provision of other Regulatory Audit Data due on April 2, 2024.