Energy Minister John Jinapor exposes $500K auction fraud at ECG

Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor, has established a committee to investigate procurement activities carried out by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) during the Akufo-Addo administration.

According to Jinapor, ECG engaged in “frivolous procurements,” leading to significant financial losses. He revealed that approximately 3,000 ECG containers are currently stranded at the ports, accumulating demurrage costs estimated at GHS 1.5 billion.

“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,” Jinapor stated in an interview on TV3.

To address these concerns, he confirmed that a committee has been set up to investigate ECG’s procurement activities and the financial burden caused by the stranded containers.

“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.

Jinapor further disclosed that, based on the preliminary findings, former ECG managers failed to adhere to proper procurement processes and guidelines.

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

In response to these findings, the Minister announced plans for a broader audit of the energy sector, including a human resource and technical review.

“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.”

With these initiatives, the Ministry aims to uncover inefficiencies and implement strategic policies to enhance the energy sector’s performance.