ECG REWARDS STAFF FOR HARDWORK DONE

The Minister of Energy, Mr Emmanuel Kofi Buah, has charged the staff and management of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to strife harder to reduce the system loses, especially power theft, from its current level to more acceptable levels. “We need the revenues to ensure that ECG is properly resourced to discharge its responsibilities to adequately fuel the economy,” he said. He also urged them to exhibit positive attitudes at the work place to enhance good performance and corporate success. Mr Buah was speaking at the 10th National Best Employee Awards ceremony of the ECG in Accra last Friday, organized to appreciate the efforts of employees as a lever to attaining higher corporate performance. This year’s event was on the theme; “Positive Attitude-The Key to ECG’s Success.” The Principal Technical Engineer of Accra East (ECG), Mr Jonathan Asante, was awarded  the overall 2012 National Best Employee of ECG and received GH¢ 2000, certificate, a plaque, laptop and a trip to visit any country of his choice in Europe. A system operator in the Central Region, Mr Stephen Ackah, was the first runner-up  and received GH¢ 1000,  certificate, a plaque and a laptop while Mr Haruna Kpakpo Saka, a foreman at the Accra West Region won the second  runner-up award receiving GH¢ 1000, certificate, a plaque and a laptop. Other staffs of the company in the various regions in the country were also recognized with citations for being the best employee in 2012. They are, Mr Alex Keteku form the Head Office, Mr Benjamin Mantey, a Senior Driver in the Western Region, Mr Theophilus Akuoku, a tradesman in the Eastern Region, and Mr Osei Nyarko, a Senior Artisan in the Asante Region. The rest are Gideon Kwame Out, a Senior Technician Engineer in the Volta Region, Mr Farouk Abubakari, a Senior Technician Engineer for Tema Region, Mr Andrews  Owusu Peprah, a Principal Technician Engineer for Ashanti West,  and Mr Benjamin Odame Thompson, a Principal Technician Engineer for Subtransmission. Mr Buah also encouraged all public and private organizations to institute performance management procedure to ensure that hardworking staff is rewarded while non performers are made to sit up and improve upon their work. He lauded management for instituting the awards scheme adding that people inadvertently downplayed the role of human capital which constantly turned the wheel of progress in the organization. 'My consolation is in the fact that you are evolving an enduring system to improve upon the quality of service delivery to the citizenry which must translate into tangible improvement in the service to the customer,' he said. He also commended management of ECG, Volta River Authority and GRIDCo for instituting performance management procedures as a measure of ensuring individual responsibility and corporate advancement to transform the work culture of these utilities. Mr Buah further urged management to manage the load shedding timetable well so as to distribute available power equitably and enable customers to plan the use of their share of the power. He said government was working tirelessly to address the current challenges facing power supply and urged them to put their best foot forward in recouping what was owned them by customers. Speaking on the theme, the Managing Director of ECG, Mr William Hutton-Mensah, in his address said over the years it had become more evident that technical competence alone could not deliver the corporate success of the company and that the missing link to staff performance had been attitudinal. 'The need for the right behavioral competence, appreciable character traits, personal discipline and positive attitudes cannot be over emphasized in every field of endeavor and it is mainly attitude that would improve the fortunes of the company,' he said. He said some of the challenges of the ECG included efficient network operations and reduction in power outages, system loss reduction, revenue collection and debt management, and the improvement in customer service with emphasis on prompt provision of service to both internal and external customers. However, the company over the years had chalked up some success with regard to system loss reduction and revenue collection but not with supply availability and service satisfaction. “Once our customers express dissatisfaction with our work, then it means we still have a long way to go with supply availability and customer service satisfaction. The customer is king and we must succumb accordingly,” he said. He said any outage that would be experienced during the day time would be as a result of equipment failure or a planned maintenance programme adding that it will soon publish a load shedding schedule to reflect the current improved situation. He said the company as part of some interventions had embarked on live-line work project to carry out planned maintenance and fix faults on energized networks to benefit customers since they would enjoy electricity supply and live on the distribution networks at all voltage levels. Mr Hutton-Mensah said management was improving upon the speed and accuracy of its billing process through the use of data loggers and the Automatic Meter Reading Technologies and urged employees of the company to be disciplined and work hard to protect its image. He however, urged the staff of the company to continue to exhibit positive attitudes towards work adding that the conduct of every member of the company goes a long way to tarnish or redeem the image of the company. “ECG is a service oriented company and consequently our customers are our first and ultimate target for responsible service. Our service to them must be as effective as possible, irrespective of the prevailing challenges,” he said.

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