Ghana’s power sector is in deep trouble—again.

In 2024, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) lost a staggering 32% of all electricity it purchased for distribution, the highest in over two decades. This was contained in the latest Energy Commission Statistics.

A JoyNews Research computation indicate that for every GH¢100 ECG spent to buy power for resale, GH¢32 was lost, either through technical faults, power theft, or billing inefficiencies.

This hemorrhaging of revenue is fueling a crisis. ECG is now buried under $2.5 billion in debt, owed to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and fuel suppliers. These debts are part of a broader storm hitting Ghana’s energy sector—one that has turned power supply into a money-burning machine.

At the heart of the national conversation is how to break the cycle. The government continues to make shortfall payments—estimated at nearly $2 billion annually—just to keep the power on. But with losses this high, the model is clearly unsustainable.

Now, President John Mahama has signaled a bold move: privatizing the final leg of ECG’s operations—the last stage of electricity distribution. The hope is that private sector efficiency can fix what years of public control could not.

Meanwhile, the country’s energy mix has shifted dramatically. Once dominated by hydro, Ghana’s power generation is now 70% thermal, increasing dependence on fuel imports and private producers with expensive power agreements. As more thermal plants and IPPs flood the sector, the costs and the risks keep mounting.

The key question remains: Can Ghana fix a power sector that loses a third of what it sells, or is the country locked into a debt-generating system with no exit?