Energy Minister John Abdulai Jinapor has blown the whistle on a staggering $500,000 fraud at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), exposing a shocking case of improper auctioning of critical equipment meant for the company.
Jinapor revealed that ECG’s failure to clear essential equipment from the port on time has led to significant financial losses and inefficiencies.
A striking example of this malfeasance involves a $500,000 container of electrical equipment that was left uncleared and subsequently auctioned off at a drastically reduced price.
“I checked with the port, and the security report I received shows that a container worth about $500,000 was imported. ECG couldn’t clear it, and somehow, someone was able to buy it at auction for 100,000 cedis, then resell it to ECG for $300,000,” Jinapor disclosed.
Jinapor condemned this situation as “unacceptable” and vowed to put an end to such practices. “It will stop. And I mean it will stop. Whatever it takes to stop that, no matter how unpopular that may be, we must take action,” he emphasized.
He stated that the IMF and the World Bank have projected an increase of Ghana’s Tariff by 58% which is a major thing to do because of inefficiencies at the ECG right now.
So, is not about just increasing the tariff but fixing all the inefficiencies, increasing revenue and reducing losses and that can help make some progress.
Speaking on 99 bank accounts of the ECG, Mr. Jinapor said they will need to close some and not all because you need some accounts closer to consumers, even though 99 accounts are unacceptable but cannot close all.
He emphasized that, if they close all the accounts, then they need to ask all consumers to pay through an App but some villages don’t even have access to the internet, so they need to make that opportunity for them to be able to make payment.
