The Northern electricity distribution company, NEDCo in Bolgatanga has issued a strong statement of caution to management of the Upper East Regional Hospital, threatening to disconnect electricity supply to the facility over the non-payment of electricity bills.
This comes after recent figures showing that the hospital owes over 3 million Ghana Cedis in unpaid electricity usage and yet still failed to meet a negotiated schedule for settling the debt in instalments.
Speaking Monday at a media briefing to begin the next wave of mass revenue mobilization and disconnection exercise, Bolgatanga Area Manager of VRA/Nedco, Ing. Eugene Oddoi Addo, disclosed that the Regional Hospital now stands as the biggest debtor, followed by the National Communication DTT site with the Bolgatanga technical University coming third with an unpaid debt of 1.2 million Ghana Cedis.
“If I look at our debtors in the region, number 1 on top of the list is the Regional hospital, the second is the Ministry of Communication and the third one is the Bolgatanga Technical University,” he stated.
According to Mr Oddoi Addo, the third phase of the mass revenue mobilization and disconnection exercise will see VRA/ Nedco Staff all out ensuring all institutions, companies and individuals pay for their bills as he maintains his outfit will not hesitate to cut power to the hospital and all other public and private institutions that owe them.
“We are communicating to everyone including the Regional Hospital because we signed a payment agreement with them, they are not going by the agreement. We will visit them and see how it goes. But if they refuse to comply, we may be forced to disconnect them from our services and any other customers. If you owe us and you don’t do justice to whatever you owe, we will disconnect you according to the law,” he served notice.
He also explained that the total debt owed VRA/Nedco in the Upper East Operational Area is over 157 million Ghana Cedis. He says the situation is affecting its operations as they target to retrieve at least 25 million in the Upper East Region.
“When you come to Upper East alone, it (debt) is about 157 million cedis. So exercises like this, we do it from time to time, to go to our customers to get some monies from them so that we can keep the system running. That is the need for this exercise,” he explained.
“We are beginning today and it is going to a month long activity. We are targeting every customer that owes us. Apart from some few sensitive customers. We are targeting almost every customer”.
