NEDCo staff on strike, demand MD’s removal over incompetence

Staff of the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) has embarked on a sit-down strike action for the removal of the Managing Director, Osmani Aludiba Ayuba over his failure to enhance the company’s mobilization effort.

According to senior staff, despite NEDCo losing over GHC400 million in 2022, efforts to recuperate losses have yielded no results.

They are also alleging that a debt of GHC1.8 billion has made it difficult for the company to pay its suppliers and contractors.

“We have met the board on two occasions, we have explained the reasons why we think there’s a need for change in leadership. The board appears to agree with us. In fact they said they are also concerned about the financial health of NEDCo. The last time we met them they informed us that they are not the appointing authority, so they informed the appointing authority. But the more we delay this process, the more NEDCo is bleeding.

“Mr. Aludiba was brought in 2019 ostensibly to help turn around our finances. At the time the board informed us that the problem in NEDCo is financial, it’s not engineering. This business we do is power distribution so they are bringing somebody with some financial background to help turn around our finances. If you take our financial performance within 2019 up to date, it has deteriorated,” the Union Chairman, William Asare told the media.

He continued: “What we call our cash flow situation is terribly bad to the extent that we are unable to pay our third parties. In Bolga for example our contractors went on strike because of work they had done on behalf of NEDCo from January up to December we were not able to pay. That is how bad our performance has been.”

The union chairman stated that the managing director Mr. Aludiba Ayuba has failed woefully in the duties for which he was employed adding that the organization could not afford to distribute new smart prepaid meters to its customers throughout last year.

“In terms of our revenue mobilization, everyone knows that prepaid meters aid in revenue mobilization. The whole of last year check from Techiman, Sunyani, Bolga, Wa not a single prepaid meter was deployed. Rather the meters that we have removed when we brought the smart meters were the meters we were washing and cleaning to send back to our customers.

“That is the state of NEDCo. We are reporting to our offices any service that we can render in our offices we will do. Any service that will take us to go to the field we are not going. Except they are emergencies,” he added.