The ruling New Patriotic Party says it inherited a huge debt in the energy sector when it came into office in 2017.

Energy Minister John Peter Amewu said the erstwhile Mahama government left a debt of ¢2.63 billion at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) when it was leaving office.

“BOST had a backlog of unaudited accounts period from 2014 to 2016. The 2016 audited account reflected a total loss of ¢459 million from BOST operations,” he said.

He said this when he took his turn at the Nation Builders Update on Thursday, where he further noted that, other agencies in the energy sector also had huge debts to settle.

"In January 2017, TOR owed BOST an amount of $13.3 million," Mr Amewu said.

He added that "BOST made a loss of $36.3 million and $459 million (highest ever recorded) in 2015 and 2016 respectively".

In addition, Mr Amewu said BOST, as of January when the NPP assumed office, owed its suppliers, BDCs and related parties $624 million.

“Products not accounted for by BOST from its eight BDCs was $35.913 million between the periods 2010 to 2014,” he added.

He also touched on other issues, including the cost of power during the Mahama-led administration.

According to Mr Amewu, there was the high cost of power, which further resulted in high consumer tariffs.

“It is true that, because most of these generators at that time came into existence through negotiations, they were able to fix the tariff through negotiations.

“If tariffs and generations had then gone into a competition, we would be looking for the best but a minimum. So that was why at that time, tariffs were extremely high," he added.