ECG loses over $400m to illegal connections – Energy Minister

Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, Minister for Ghana’s Energy Sector has bemoaned over the huge rate of illegal electricity connections in the country. He revealed that these dubious crimes have contributed to a great loss of over $400 million to Ghana’s power distribution company, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)

The Minister shared the data at a press conference on Wednesday, April 13 as he attributed the amount of money ECG fails to collect as largely made up of commercial losses and collection losses.

“I mean theft; those who are stealing metres, those who are bypassing their metres, those whose metres are not working, and those who don’t even have metres but also have electricity. We must pay for the power we consume even once its generated we must all pay,” he warned.

According to Dr Opoku Prempeh, ECG would struggle to be a viable company if these illegalities, which result in accruing debts persist.

“That ECG loss is our inability to pay or our willingness to pay our power theft.”

He further highlighted some strategies to be meted to reduce such loses as he disclosed the relaunch of the ECG Revenue Protection Task Force geared to identify power theft in the system as well as recover debt across consumers.



“We need to also ensure the implementation of the Cash Waterfall Mechanism and Natural Gas Clearinghouse. This has ensured payment to all players in the value chain to stay financially viable,” he added.