By: Murtala Issah
Some public institutions in the Northern region, have been disconnected from the national grid over huge debts owed to the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo).
The development follows a debt recovery exercise being undertaken by NEDCo to recover more than 1.2 billion cedis. The Institutions include the Tamale College of Education, which owes an amount of 3.5 million cedis, the Bagabaga College of Education which owes 4.1 million cedis and the Alhaji Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium, which has accumulated a debt of 446 thousand cedis.
The Tamale Technical University, however, escaped the disconnection exercise after Management reached an agreement with NEDCo to pay their debt of 1.2 million cedis with the first cheque expected on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.
Managements of Bagabaga College of Education, the Tamale College of Education and Alhaji Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium pleaded for more time to pay their debts, but their plea was not accepted and were therefore disconnected. The Principal of the Bagabaga College of Education, Fuseini Yakubu explained that, the college had no money to pay off its debt.
“The seventy percent that you are talking of, frankly speaking, I don’t think the entire amount in our coffers now can even reach that. So I think you have to see how you can support us now, so that maybe to give us some technical advice as to how we can start at least doing more than what we’ve been doing. Because even if you cut us off, the entire account of the college cannot pay that amount of money,” he disclosed.
The MD for NEDCo, Osmani Aludiba Ayuba in December last year, revealed that, NEDCo was under threat and could soon collapse from the huge debts owed the company. On Tuesday, he reaffirmed this position, saying, failure to recover the debts could collapse the company. “We have a business to run, everyday that we supply power to you the debts keep mounting and piling up.
These two weeks you are talking about is going to even accumulate more debt, and we will be talking about a different amount here, so the view we hold is that, we will respectfully take off the power,” he stressed.
The debt recovery exercise is expected to last until May 18, 2023. NEDCo hopes to retrieve at least fifty percent of the debt by the end of the exercise.