The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) says it has successfully traced all its missing containers and retrieved more than 1,000 from the port, marking a major step in addressing logistics challenges that had hampered its operations.

Briefing the Energy Committee of Parliament on the company’s operations, acting Managing Director of ECG, Ing. Julius Kpekpena, said the company had made “a lot of progress” since May, when many of the containers could not be traced.

“So far, we have moved over a thousand containers. I’m happy to say that we traced all of the containers and we started moving them from the port,” he noted.

Mr Kpekpena added that ECG has also intensified efforts to stabilise the power supply.

“We have managed to curb outages. We are not saying that we have eliminated outages, but we've worked to curb outages, and we are continuing to put in measures to make sure that we don't go back to what we came to meet,” he said.

Background

An investigative report on the operations of ECG had revealed that more than 1,300 containers, which were supposed to be cleared at the Tema Port, could not be accounted for.

The chairman of the committee that conducted the investigation, Prof Innocent Senyo Acquah, disclosed that while ECG claimed to have 2,491 uncleared containers that contained cables as well as other equipment belonging to ECG, an independent audit at the port found only 1,134, leaving 1,347 unaccounted for. 

He presented the findings to the Minister of Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor.

According to Prof Acquah, before 2022, ECG had a dedicated fund that received weekly allocations for clearing the containers. However, the practice was discontinued, with the ECG board citing a lack of funds. 

Meanwhile, during this period, the company awarded contracts to two firms to clear the containers, with one being pre-financed by ECG. 

It was further discovered that one of these companies lacked the necessary licence to carry out the contract, raising concerns over procurement breaches.

The committee also found that ECG’s procurement directorate had been merged with its Housing and Estate unit. 

Additionally, background checks on the Director of Procurement revealed that he had no prior experience in procurement and was not a member of any professional procurement body.