The Coalition of Stakeholders on the ECG Concession (COSECA) expressed displeasure over the recent news that staff of ECG and their Union, Public Utilities Workers Union (PUWU) have sued the Management of ECG and the Government of Ghana/ Ministry of Energy over the ECG Private Sector Participation which is part of the Millennium Challenge Compact II.
“We wish to express our disappointment at the turn of events, especially taking into account the enormous efforts made by COSECA since the beginning of the year to prevent an escalation of the stalemate between government and key stakeholders in the energy sector”, according to a statement issued by Dr Steve Manteaw, a member of the COSECA.
” Indeed, we created a platform where all stakeholders including the Unions, on one side, were in dialogue with the Government, MiDA, ECG management on the other side. The dialogues were useful and we made progress enough to prevent the Unions from taking decisions to strike or pickets, and resorting rather to dialogue with government”.
It added that COSECA itself has its membership drawn from groups with diverse and ideologically irreconcilable positions on the PSP, but who have found it necessary to reach out to each other in the supreme interest of Ghana, to work with the government and key stakeholders towards a consensus on how to enhance the ECG reform programme in ways that are more beneficial to the country and mutually acceptable to key stakeholders, including the workers.
Unfortunately, the dialogue broke down; COSECA continued to urge the parties to return to the dialogue but without success. COSECA warned that in the absence of dialogue, feud will escalate and could lead to legal tussles and a disruption of the Private Sector Participation (PSP) process. Unfortunately, what we warned against seems to be happening, we hope we can prevent the ultimate problem (i.e. disruption of the PSP process).
Even as we regret the turn of events, we continue to hope that it’s not too late to return to dialogue, and ultimately ensure the power sector reforms ongoing, especially the ECG PSP is successful.
COSECA stands ready to facilitate a return to discussions between the parties, and urge them to take the opportunity to restart the negotiations.
“Our understanding is that the present impasse revolves around disagreements over declaration of Redundancy and Severance pay. We observe also that the Minister of Energy has declared government’s willingness to pay severance. All that is left relates to declaration of a formal Redundancy.
In our view, the issue can be negotiated. Resorting to court to settle such a matter has the attendant risk of frustrating the PSP process. It is our firm belief that if parties are minded to, they can discuss and resolve this matter and not disrupt the PSP process”.
COSECA restates its support for fundamentally reforming ECG to ensure that the government control and interference is removed, to allow the company to operate on sound financial and management principles and ultimately ensure the reliable and cost-effective power supply to the people and businesses of Ghana.
We however also insist that things must be done well and in accordance with law. Above all it must be managed to ensure the least pain, suffering and loss to all parties involved.
COSECA wishes to remind all stakeholders of our proposal regarding the way forward for this exercise. After much consultation and deliberation, we concluded that a Termed Joint Venture (TJV) between a pruned down and streamlined ECG, and the Concessionaire for the term of 20 years is the best way forward.
ECG would remain active with the concessionaire taking over the areas where ECG has the most weaknesses. This deals with the actual problems of ECG and offers the least cost, most effective approach as compared to the other options presently in consideration, the statement said.
“This TJV option avoids the huge financial burden on the government with regard to paying redundancy, and also deals with a number of other thorny issues such as monitoring of the concessionaire’s activities, ensuring effective technology transfer, and ensuring ECG is ready after 20 years to manage the system after the PSP is over. This process therefore ensures the whole reform process goes ahead without the costs and other pitfalls associated with it.
We urge the parties to take another look at the proposal, which already enjoys support from many of the stakeholders.
We further observe that with the President’s May Day 2017 speech where he declared that 51% of the concessionaire will be Ghanaian owned, the case for a TJV is further strengthened. This allows the concessionaire to offer shares to workers and other local entities, instead of one key technical partner.
We still believe the TJV offers the best option and urge stakeholders to take another look at it
COSECA repeats its call on the workers and other stakeholders especially Government to return to dialogue and ensure the success of the ECG reform and privatisation effort”.
African Eye Report
