Minister for Energy John Jinapor has revealed that the Electricity Company Ghana (ECG) currently has containers full of materials, including transformers stuck at the port, costing the power distributor billions of cedis.

According to the Minister who was responding to questions on the current power cuts, some of these items are transformers, which will help deal with many overloaded transformers across the country that must be changed.

Mr Jinapor explains that some of these items have a life span of 10 years, but five of this duration have been wasted locked up at the ports.

“When we took over, I visited the Tema Harbour and found about 3,000 containers stuck there, most of which contain transformers. As of today, ECG has a total liability of 13 billion cedis from supplies, with demurrage alone projected to reach GH₵1.5 billion by the end of 2024,” he stated.

The minister further revealed that the Ministry of Energy had awarded contracts worth GH₵6 billion without commencement certificates in 2024, despite its total budget for that year being under GH₵ 2 billion cedis. ECG’s supply commitments in 2024 alone amounted to GH₵ 9.7 billion cedis.

“These are the facts,” he emphasised.

Mr Jinapor assured that the government would take decisive action to resolve these issues and ensure the efficient use of resources in the energy sector, adding that the Energy Ministry has set up a committee to investigate procurement anomalies and breaches.