The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has instructed the Ghana Education Service (GES) to take responsibility for paying the electricity bills of Senior High Schools (SHS) to prevent disconnections.
The directive was issued during a session in Tamale, where the Committee reviewed the Auditor-General’s report on the management and utilization of the District Assemblies Common Fund and other statutory funds for the year ending 31st December 2023.
The report revealed that several SHS, including Tamale Business School, Tumu SHS, Wa SHS, and St. Basilide’s Vocational/Technical Institute, owe significant debts to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Northern Electricity Distribution Company Limited (NEDCo).
The Public Accounts Committee urged the management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to put adequate measures in place and settle these debts to avoid service interruptions in various public second-cycle schools.
PAC’s directive comes after the Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) said government Senior High Schools in the country owes his outfit an amount of GHC45 million.
He disclosed this after ECG early this year disconnected Accra Academy Senior High School from the national grid due to an unpaid debt of over GH¢400,000 which resulted in a total blackout on the entire campus.
In an interview with TV3, the ECG official said the debt stock of customers is becoming too huge, hence the need to take urgent measures to recover them.
“Currently, the schools’ bill is almost GHC45m in arrears. Across the nation, there is a GHC2.5 billion debt based on debt stock I am seeing,” the official said.
He added “For Accra Academy and co, I am sorry for what happened yesterday, I know it was a traumatizing experience. That was not the main aim of the company.
I had a conversation with the Director General of the Ghana Education Service, and he has promised to have a meeting with me before the end of this week, so we can find a long-lasting solution to these issues and how we can handle them going forward.”