Power supply to the head office of the National Identification Authority (NIA) in Accra has been disconnected by the Electricity Company of Ghana because of its indebtedness to the company.
The management of the NIA failed to take advantage of a 14-day grace period given it by the ECG to pay the amount owed, which subsequently resulted in the power supply to the authority being disconnected.
The NIA owed the Accra East Region of the ECG GH¢1,080,615.75 as of September 2014.
In 2013, the NIA also owed the ECG GHc 663,096.01 including arrears of GHc 611,195.34.
However, the amount for the year 2013 is in contention by the management of the NIA, which is arguing that last year, the Ministry of Finance agreed to pay the arrears owed the ECG by state institutions including the NIA.
The government in 2013 released GH¢207.5 million to clear arrears in tariffs owed by the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to the Electricity Company of Ghana, and instructed the MDAs to pay their own utility bills thereafter.
Speaking in an interview, the Head of Administration, Legal and Compliance of the NIA, Mr Josef Iroko, stated that the authority was on government subvention and, therefore, was not supposed to pay for its utility bills itself.
Despite various explanations given to the ECG about the sensitive nature of the authority’s operations, which made constant power supply to the premises a necessity, Mr Iroko indicated that the ECG had turned a deaf ear to their concerns.
While he agreed that the ECG also needed to carry out its operations, Mr Iroko contended that it needed to do that with caution, noting that if the disconnection continued for long, it could result in the breakdown of some of the NIA’s?equipment, which might be difficult to repair or replace.
“ECG’s approach is solving one problem while creating another which may be difficult to resolve in the end,” Mr. Iroko stressed.
“Our mandate is a serious one as we supply data and information to security institutions in the country. In the event that key information is needed urgently by any of these institutions around this period, we will not be able to supply that,” he said.
Since the disconnection, Mr. Iroko said the NIA had been relying on a standby generator, adding that “the cost of buying fuel daily is really unbearable.”
In the meantime, he said the management had made a complaint to the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to address the issue.
He added that management would also write to the other appropriate authorities for the issue to be addressed.
