The Public Utility Workers’ Union (PUWU) has called on Ghanaians to unite in their opposition to the deal to lease the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to a foreign entity for 25 years, warning that, letting go the national asset would have dire consequences.

The whole concession arrangement, it indicated, was bad for the people, the nation and the economy.

It presented a very grim outlook: “tariffs are going to hit the roof as the case has been in countries that have travelled this road”.

Thousands of workers would lose their jobs and rural electrification doomed, it added.

Mr. Ato Kwamina Bondzi-Quaye, the General Secretary, said the Union found it disheartening that Ghana should be bulldozed into consenting to lease the ECG “for a mere grant of US$490 million”.

Addressing their 11th quadrennial delegates’ conference in Kumasi, he accused the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), the body implementing the decision, of misleading the people with “lies, half-truths and distortion of reality”.

The three-day meeting was held under the theme “Ensuring an efficient and reliable service delivery in the utilities sector: The role of stakeholders”.

Mr. Bondzi- Quaye insisted that the solution to problems of the ECG was not to give the company to a private entity.

Government should pay its debts to the company amounting to over GHȼ2.4 billion, end the political interference, tackle the inadequate power supply and unfair tariff structures.

GNA