John Abdulai Jinapor, the Energy Minister has said the 99 account numbers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) are unacceptable.
The Energy Minister noted that due to the ECG’s operational area, some accounts need to be closer to customers for payments to be made.
He asserted that all the 99 accounts cannot be closed unless we are asking people to pay for everything through an app which would not be possible in some areas.
Speaking on TV3 Hot Issues, John Abdulai Jinapor stated, “Because of ECG’s operational area, we would have to close some but not all, because you need some accounts closer to consumers if it is prepayment they can pay on an app, but postpaid maybe the person wants to walk to the nearest GCB account and pay so it depends on the system we put in place”.
“99 accounts are unacceptable, but I am saying that we cannot close all the accounts if you close all the accounts unless you are asking people to pay for everything through an app”, he added.
John Abdulai Jinapor further added, “In some villagers and some areas, they simply do not have those facilities, and you want to create the opportunity for them to be able to walk to the nearest place, and make payment, so we would balance it, but we will deal with it such that it does not lead to inefficiency but improve the system and make it convenient for people to pay and ensure we account for every penny that is paid”.
The energy minister during the interview further revealed that there is massive rot at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
The minister noted that about 3,000 containers belonging to ECG are stuck at the port, incurring 1.5 billion in demurrage fees.
According to John Abdulai Jinapor, a container worth about $500,000 was also imported by the ECG but could not clear it and somehow the container was auctioned for 100,000 cedis.
He further revealed that the container sold for 100,000 cedis was later resold to the ECG for $300,000.
He added, “So far, the preliminary reports I have gotten indicate that there’s massive rot at ECG.”
Johh Jinapor revealed a human resource audit, a deeper audit of the entire energy sector will be conducted to clear the inefficiencies.
“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”, he added.
Watch the video below:
In his explanation of the ECG’s 99 bank accounts, Energy Minister John Abdulai Jinapor points to customer accessibility while emphasizing that the number of accounts is too much and unacceptable.#HotIssues pic.twitter.com/6GeUkuxWEr
— #3NewsGH (@3NewsGH) February 17, 2025
