A 2020 report of the Auditor-General has uncovered that the Electricity Company of Ghana has abandoned prepaid meters and conductors procured between 2014 and 2016.
The abandoned meters and conductors are said to be worth GHS59,161,964.56.
According to the report, the meters have not been issued out to customers and have been left to rot.
Rather, management bought new meters.
The Auditor-General has thus recommended that prepayment meters and conductors are given out without delay.
The report recommended “the amount involved should be recovered from the officers who engaged in the procurement”, should ECG fail to distribute them.
The report further revealed that the items were either partially issued or have not been issued at all.
The meters are being kept in the stores at the time of inspection on August 8, 2019.
The procurement status report of 2018 and stores receipt vouchers also revealed that management procured new prepayment meters for the developmental activities and abandoned the previous procurement made.
Meanwhile, management has reacted by saying that some technical challenges were identified during the initial stage of installation of the meters, and as a result, could not be used for the intended purpose.
It had before the audit visit constituted a committee to engage the suppliers on the identified technical challenges, and the report is with the Board for the next line of action.
“The Hard all Alu bare stranded conductors 255sq were procured for some specific projects which are now encountering right of way land disputes. Management is still negotiating to secure clearance for the continuation of the affected projects”, an extract of the audit report read.
Aside from the meters, the report has uncovered that the company suffered a loss of GHS 2,749,371 in 2018, as compared to GHS 642,120 in 2017.
There was also a loss of revenue of ECG materials on rechargeable jobs to the tune of GHS 179,647.23, GHS 586,489.89, and GHS140,084.74 for the Accra West, Tema, and Ashanti Regions respectively.
Overdue Special Load Tariff (SLT) debts amounted to GHS 27,857,498.59 during the same period.
The report discovered other irregularities including head office and procurement system losses, stock differences, report materials on loan, capacity charges by Cenit Energy amounting to GHS 182,576,235.15, and damaged transformers totalling GHS 427,893.70.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com
