Recently, the Honourable Minister for Finance publicly commended the Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for what was described as unprecedented revenue growth under his leadership. On the surface, such praise may appear justified. However, a closer look at how this revenue was achieved raises serious questions about leadership effectiveness, operational efficiency, and the prudent use of public resources.

These reported gains were not the result of structural reforms, improved commercial systems, or strengthened managerial oversight. Rather, they were achieved by compelling all staff, regardless of their core functions, to engage in revenue collection exercises.

This reality exposes a fundamental contradiction within ECG’s human resource architecture and casts serious doubt on the sustainability of the celebrated achievement.

My sources indicate that about 40 percent of ECG’s workforce belongs to the Commercial Department, recruited, trained, and remunerated specifically for billing, revenue mobilisation, and debt recovery.

If accounts officers, cleaners, procurement officers, administrators, and other technical staff must perform revenue collection to achieve results, what value is the Commercial Department delivering?

More troubling are persistent perceptions and complaints of corrupt practices within the system. There have been repeated allegations of staff demanding or accepting bribes from individuals caught stealing power, as well as reports of employees being involved in shady arrangements to enrich themselves at the expense of the company.

While not every allegation may be proven, the consistency of these concerns points to deep institutional weaknesses that leadership can no longer afford to ignore.

Ironically, the current revenue growth, achieved only when the entire workforce was mobilised, confirms that ECG’s problems are largely self-inflicted.

If collective internal action suddenly yields results, the primary obstacles were never external alone. They were internal compromise, weak controls, poor supervision, and a culture that tolerated inefficiency and misconduct. As the saying goes, the enemy cannot infiltrate without a traitor within.

This reality raises uncomfortable but necessary questions about accountability, destructive compromise, and fairness.

How does management justify paying two employees similar salaries when one persistently underperforms, yet remains protected, while another is forced to absorb additional responsibilities to compensate? Is it that these field officers share their booty with their leaders, or act as frontmen for them? This can never be good corporate governance. It is clear economic waste. Leadership that erodes morale, rewards indiscipline, and punishes diligence.

When a core department fails in its primary mandate yet remains structurally intact and largely unquestioned, responsibility rests squarely with management. ECG has a leadership and governance failure rather than a manpower problem.

ECG needs no magician to see that its Commercial Department, as currently constituted, requires a comprehensive overhaul, grounded in performance audits, integrity screening, skills realignment, and clear consequences for sustained non-performance and misconduct.

I am sure those applauding themselves already know that this revenue “feat” is cosmetic. Deep down, they understand this is not a victory worth celebrating. A revenue surge achieved through extraordinary, unsustainable measures is not evidence of strong leadership; it confirms that normal systems have failed.

True leadership would respond to such an outcome with discomfort and urgency, not satisfaction. Applause should not follow results that merely expose how broken routine operations have become.

What ECG urgently needs is bold leadership: clear-eyed, firm, uncompromising, yet human-centred. Whether that leader is an engineer, accountant, or administrator is secondary. What matters is the courage to confront deviant behaviour decisively. Staff who can be reformed must be compelled to change; those who refuse must face the full weight of disciplinary consequence. Institutions do not heal through appeasement—they recover when leadership draws clear lines between acceptable conduct and sabotage.

This same leadership deficit frames the ongoing controversy surrounding the proposed Private Sector Participation (PSP) arrangement. The company’s unions are protesting the government’s decision to pursue PSP on ECG’s behalf, citing job security and national interest concerns. These concerns deserve serious engagement.

However, if private sector efficiency is genuinely the objective, alternative governance models must be honestly examined. Why is the conversation limited to PSP arrangements with external operators? Why not consider a partial public float that allows Ghanaians to own shares in ECG? The experience of GCB Bank demonstrates that a shareholder-based model combining public ownership with market discipline can deliver accountability, transparency, and sustained performance. Such an approach would broaden stakeholder responsibility and align ECG’s success more directly with the national interest.

This moment also demands a broader national reckoning. Ghanaians must support reforms that protect public institutions from internal sabotage. We cannot continue to hide behind the pretext of unemployment while tolerating behaviours that actively destroy the very institutions meant to serve the country. Shielding those who abuse public trust simply because they hold jobs is neither compassionate nor patriotic.

Leadership is not measured by applause from podiums or temporary spikes in revenue. It is measured by the strength of systems, the integrity of processes, and the courage to confront failure, especially when it originates from within.

Until ECG confronts its internal weaknesses, enforces accountability, and rebuilds functional commercial structures, celebrating cosmetic success risks mistaking noise for progress and survival tactics for genuine leadership.