Members of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) board who served from January 1 to March 18, 2024, have been fined a hefty five million, eight hundred and sixty-eight thousand Ghana cedis (GHS 5,868,000.00) by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC).

They were found to have violated Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413, which mandates that customers be notified in advance of any power outage.

The current ECG Managing Director, Samuel Dubik Mahama, and Keli Gadzekpo, who resigned as Board Chair on March 26, are among those impacted by the fine.

A load-shedding timeline was supposed to be issued by April 2, 2024, per a letter from PURC dated March 18. However, the directive was flagrantly broken without any justification.

In addition, the Commission requested in a letter dated March 18 that the ECG provide a list of all scheduled outages that it conducted from January to March.

In a letter dated Monday, April 15, PURC stated that 4142 outages were conducted during the given period based on its analysis of the data submitted.

“The Commission established from its analysis of data submitted by ECG that there were 4142 outages to consumers within ECG’s operational areas between January and March 2024. Out of this number, 165 representing 3.98% of the total outages were ECG-planned outages. Further analysis showed that of the 165 ECG planned outages, 40 were supported by public notices, while there were no notices for the remaining 125 outages.

“Further, 38 of the 40 notices did not comply with the requisite three-day statutory notice prescribed under Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413. This indicates that in 163 instances of planned outages, ECG did not comply with the law.”

The regulatory body declared that ECG would be fined 3,000 penalty units for each violation it made in disregard for the timeline directive.

The fine was also to be applied to the board members of ECG because of their ownership arrangement.

“For failure to comply with the 3-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 Five Million, Eight Hundred and Sixty-Eight Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS 5,868,000.00).

“The Commission has determined that having regard to the nature of ECG’s ownership and business, the imposition of the penalty of Five Million, Eight Hundred and Sixty-Eight Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS 5,868,000.00) on ECG would be counter-productive, as payment from ECG’s revenue would have a rebounding adverse effect on quality of service and consumers who pay tariffs to the company.”