The Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor, has created a committee to examine procurement practices conducted by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) under the Akufo-Addo government.

Jinapor condemned ECG for making "unjustified procurements," leading to substantial financial setbacks. He also revealed that around 3,000 ECG containers are currently stuck at the ports, incurring demurrage charges that could amount to GHS 1.5 billion.

Speaking to the media, Mr Jinapor stated, “It’s all because they are engaged in what I call very frivolous procurements. Now, they have about 3,000 containers stuck at the ports, generating demurrage of about GHS 1.5 billion, which is very unacceptable. Some of the things they’ve procured will last them ten years, some will even expire in five years”.

To resolve these matters, he assured that a committee has been formed to examine ECG's procurement activities and the financial impact resulting from the containers being held up.

“So we’ve commissioned a committee to investigate ECG’s procurements and the cost of these containers stuck at the ports. The committee is doing a very good job,” he added.

Mr Jinapor also mentioned that, according to initial reports, former ECG managers did not comply with the required procurement procedures and regulations.

“So far, the preliminary reports I have gotten indicate that there’s massive rot at ECG.”

Following these findings, the Minister shared plans to carry out an extensive audit of the energy sector, covering both human resources and technical evaluations.

“But beyond that, there will be another technical report. What the PwC has done is a financial audit. We want to do a human resource audit, a deeper audit of the entire energy sector, which will then give us a clear picture of the inefficiencies so that we can tailor that in terms of our policy objective and policy directive to address this.”

Through these initiatives, the Ministry seeks to identify inefficiencies and introduce targeted policies to improve the overall performance of the energy sector.