By Energy Minister John Abdulai Jinapor has uncovered some disturbing irregularities in the Electricity Company of Ghana’s (ECG) financial report for January 2025. This revelation comes on the heels of a massive financial mess exposed by an audit report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The audit report revealed that ECG under-declared revenues to the tune of GH₵1.14 billion, which is a staggering amount. Furthermore, ECG operated 84 separate bank accounts across 20 banks, despite being directed to use a single account for all revenue collections and disbursements ².
These irregularities have serious implications for the energy sector and its stakeholders. The minister’s discovery is a clear indication that there’s been a significant lack of transparency and accountability within ECG. It’s essential that the government takes bold action to address these issues and ensure that those responsible are held accountable.
In an interview with Kemini Amanor on TV3’s Hot Issues, February 16 2025, John Jinapor said a careful perusal of the first-month report of the company show that there is under-declaration of cash collected from customers.
“Upon assumption of office, I asked for the first-month report and the shock of my life is that ECG collects about GHS1.5 billion and of that amount about GHS500 million is not declared as far as the cash waterfall mechanism is concerned,” he disclosed.
John Jinapor noted that such act by the ECG is in contravention of the cash waterfall mechanism policy.
“So, what ECG does is that of the GHS1.5billion, they keep GHS500 million first before they move in to take some more from the GHS1.5 billion which is in contravention to the policy and cash waterfall mechanism,” he added.
He further disclosed that ECG has entered into too many contractual obligations requiring numerous deductions at source from banks before the money gets into ECG’s account.
“So far what we have released is that they have gone into so many contractual obligations. So many banks deduct that monies at source. They’ve just gone for what they call a super vendor, that super vendor takes 5% at source, they’ve gone for a certain payment app from a company that takes another 3% at source and so ab initio, we have a lot of deductions at source which eats away almost the chunk of the money,” he added.
The appropriate procedure, he said: “What ECG has to do was deposit all the 1.5 billion into a holding account then there’s a cash water fall mechanism committee and then they will determine the formula to apportion the money.”
“So, if ECG decides to declare only 1 billion, the 500 million left what it means is that they keep that money and spend it inhouse.”
John Jinapor says the company’s action will affect payment of statutory levies, payment to generators, Independent Power Producers etc.
