The Ghana Trade Fair Centre has disclosed to Citi Business News it has commenced payments of outstanding debts it owes the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
According to the Centre’s CEO, Dr. Agnes Adu, the outfit has already paid ten percent of the debt after negotiating an agreement with the ECG.
“With the power situation, the ECG towards the end of 2014 disconnected power to the facility for non-payment. So the bills had piled up to some level where ECG felt was enough. How we came about was really not so much the fault of Trade Fair in using the power. But really we didn’t go after the collection from the tenants so that is what led to it,” she said.
The Trade Fair’s indebtedness is estimated at six hundred thousand cedis (GH¢600,000).
The issue earlier compelled the power distributor to cut off power supply to the facility.
But Dr. Agnes Adu is confident her administration will complete all payments as scheduled.
“When I came, of course, my first priority was to get power restored from ECG back to the centre so I kicked in quite an aggressive plan to go after the tenants to collect some of the revenue and also the electricity. So once I did that then I took my plight to ECG and actually negotiated with them how we can clear some of the bills and also make arrangement to pay the rest of the bill. And so we have a system where ECG supplies us with power and we have paid some of the past deal,” she explained.
She, however, assures that they are working to pay all arrears.
“But also they [ECG] run some of their plants on the grounds here so we are working out an agreement that will help us clear the rest of the bill” she rehushed.
Dr. Agnes Adu spoke at a media briefing ahead of the International Trade Fair celebration which comes off in March 2018.
The International Fair is expected to rake in about 600 foreign and local exhibitors.
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By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
