Hubtel has denied claims made by some Civil Society Organisation (CS0) and Media Commentators about its work at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

According to the organization, some of these false statements seem to be designed to totally discredit the work that the organization has done in the recent transformation and record-breaking achievements in ECG’s revenue collection and commercial operations.

This was contained in a Press Release issued by Hubtel which provided factual responses to the false claims and statements made by the CSO’s and Media Commentators.

The Press Release explains the issues raised by the CSOs and Media Commentators as follows:

  • At the start of the project, $25million was only a figure set out as the cost limit by the Board of Directors of ECG. Hubtel has not been paid $25million. The organization also added that with their guidance and other third-party service providers, ECG spent about $12million of the $25million cost limit to replace old and obsolete systems that were causing severe revenue losses and frequent downtimes.  

These included the upgrading of its core databases from Oracle 10G to Oracle 19C, a new balance management and accounting system, hybridization of metering infrastructure, overhaul of staff systems for commercial operations, overhaul of customer self-service systems, overhaul of revenue protection systems and others. The new ECG PowerApp is only one of the cost lines within these expenditures” the statement added.

  • The statement explained that some $12million (cumulatively amounting to about GHS 171 million) has been used so far to overhaul ECG’s old and obsolete systems as part of this project. The organization has not quoted anywhere that the organization received $25million from ECG”.
  • Further details showed that at no point since the founding of organization have any of the company’s shares been held or owned, directly or indirectly, by an official of any government institution or any person affiliated with any political party in Ghana. Also, at no point since the founding of the company has it had any contract with the Government of Ghana.
  • Concerning the building of the new commercial systems, the organization explained that it is not possible to buy the API’s from them and engage the ECG engineers to build it. “It is similar to saying one can purchase payment APIs (from say a mobile money telco) so that they never have to pay transaction processing fees ever again. It simply does not work like this within the payment processing industry in Ghana or globally.” the statement said.
  • The organization also refuted claims that they get 3% of electricity bought by ECG customers.
    Explaining the organization’s position, the statement said that for all merchants and retailers using Hubtel’s platform, the organization charge a fee of 1.95% on all transactions processed through the payment platform. 1% of this 1.95% is typically retained by the mobile money and card scheme providers, and the organization receives 0.95% as fees and this is no different in ECG’s case.

“Hubtel’s fee is 0.95%. Other fees which are not part of the organization’s fees include fees retained by upstream payment providers such as mobile money providers, Visa and MasterCard, provision for metering cloud infrastructure, bank transfer charges and next day settlement fees to meet ECG’s demand to receive all collections within 1 day of processing regardless of the settlement period of the upstream payment scheme provider.”, the statement added.

  • Explaining further, the organization said that considering the agreement which is to last for 5 years, as of the time of this release, a monthly average revenue growth of over 210% (compared to the revenues of August 2022) has been achieved as a result of the work being done by Hubtel and the new commercial system providers. This is the longest-sustained record of monthly revenue growth in ECG’s collection history. Even factored for the recent average increase in tariff of about 80%, there is still a significant net monthly revenue growth of about 72%; which is a record growth since the year 2001. This significant jump in monthly revenues has enabled the ECG to become self-sufficient in meeting its obligations to key suppliers in the short-term.

The statement said that the new commercial systems designed, developed, and implemented by Hubtel and other service providers have only been involved in ECG’s operations since March 2023.

“Hubtel remains a company deeply rooted in the ideals of good governance, transparency, and an unyielding determination to contribute to the development of the digital economy in Ghana”.

The organization used the statement to assure the general public that their service at ECG has been guided by these principles at all times and call on the general public to disregard these misleading comments.

Source: SonShinne News/ Jessica Johnson

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