Meralco Consortium, a power company from the Philipines will assume the assets and operations of ECG with a new name Power Distribution Services (PDS) Ghana Limited. The takeover is set for the February 1, 2019.
The initiative is expected to see the power distribution company receive some funds to expand its operations as well as build a new bulk station in Pokuase, a suburb of Accra, which has one of the growing populations in the country.
Meralco Consortium won the bid to take over the operations of ECG and it is now the major shareholder in PDS Ghana Limited.
Citi Business News quoted the Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Martin Eson-Benjamin, as saying on Thursday that the company would be injecting $580 million into the operations of ECG.
He was optimistic that the funds would turn around the fortunes of the ECG to help stabilize the country’s power distribution.
“We have gone through many processes and now I can tell you that everything is almost completed for the new company to take over. The takeover will bring efficiency and we will all see the improvement in the new company, he said, adding that the company would also work to remove leakages and financial losses in the system.
Meanwhile, some workers who spoke to APA expressed fear and panic of losing their job. Some of them explained that the redundancy that followed after the take over of Ghana Telecom by Vodafone in 2008 was still fresh in their mind.
According to them, they are skeptical about President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo’s pronouncement that no worker of the ECG would lose his or her job as a result of the takeover.