GOING! GOING! GONE! ECG WILL NOW WORK FOR PRIVATE PROFIT

Kwabena Donkor, Minister of Power

By Ekow Mensah

It is now certain that an American Company is most likely to be given the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to run for the next 20 to 30 years solely for private profit.

This is a condition for government of Ghana to access the US Millennium Challenge Account of Us $500 million.

Government and its spokespersons have been at pains to explain that what is happening is not pivatisation of the ECG.

They insist that the shareholding structure of ECG will not change and that the company would only be handed over as a concession to another private entity.

For the period of the concession the ECG will be managed and fully controlled by the private entity only for private profit.

The Government of Ghana signed the Ghana Power compact with the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) an independent US government and agency on August 5,2014 .

According to Owura Sarfo Chief Executive Officer of MIDA, the private entity would help transform ECG by providing it with updated technology to make it more efficient. 

Editorial

The world has enough problems, no need to invent more

Thousands of asylum seekers mainly from Syria are streaming everyday to Europe to escape the horrors of civil war.

The issue has become the European Union’s number one problem. Neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Turkey also have to contend with influx of huge refugee populations on their soil.

No doubt large quantities of the world’s attention and resources will be consumed by this huge refugee problem for a long time.

What is sad about the development is that it could easily have been avoided. The strange philosophy of regime change which has seduced some in America’s administration and been adopted by some Western European powers has brought the world disastrous results.

We are now at a stage where even regret will not resolve anything immediately.

Still, positive steps can be taken towards peace.

The United Nations exist largely to prevent such situations. It is still the forum to turn to for consensual solutions to world problems.

For a start states should stop arming non state actors and point their clients towards forums for resolving problems which threaten world peace. It is not fair to the Syrian people that non- Syrians will use Syria to prove costly points in terms of life, infrastructure and heritage.