Minority Leader in Parliament and former Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Board Chairman Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin has urged the power distributor to urgently fix revenue leakages, warning that faulty meters could leave at least 150,000 customer accounts inaccurately billed.
He said ECG must address its operational inefficiencies and improve revenue collection before considering further tariff increases or new levies, insisting that consumers should not continue to bear the cost of the company’s structural problems.
“ECG must close its revenue leakages before it reaches for tariff increases or new levies,” he said.
According to Mr Afenyo-Markin, ECG serves more than three million customers, meaning that if only five per cent have faulty meters, at least 150,000 accounts could be affected by inaccurate billing, with the resulting revenue losses accumulating every month.
He identified incorrect and delayed bills, under-billing, unbilled customers and inaccurate customer records as critical problems requiring urgent attention.
Mr Afenyo-Markin made the remarks at a luncheon organised by ECG in honour of its former managing directors and board chairpersons at the Accra Marriott Hotel on Wednesday, September 23, 2026.
He argued that Ghana’s electricity sector requires structural reforms rather than partisan blame, adding that the burden of solving ECG’s financial problems should not continue to fall on consumers.
“Over the past nineteen months, ordinary Ghanaians have absorbed tariff increases exceeding 28 per cent. Burdening them further is no answer to problems that are structural,” he said.
Reform yields results
The former ECG Board Chairman, who served from September 29, 2024, to January 6, 2025, said the company’s Loss Reduction Programme had demonstrated that operational reforms could improve its financial performance.
The programme, introduced in 2023 under the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia administration, targets faulty meters, outdated billing systems and illegal electricity connections.
Mr Afenyo-Markin cited figures presented at ECG’s annual general meeting showing that the company’s loss after tax fell from GH¢8.25 billion in 2024 to GH¢2.52 billion in 2025, a reduction of nearly 70 per cent.
He also said ECG’s revenue increased from GH¢19.6 billion to GH¢22.1 billion over the same period, while new connections rose by 31.3 per cent to 222,979.
Prepaid customers now account for 53.5 per cent of the company’s customer base, according to the figures he presented.
“Reform has achieved what tariff increases alone could not,” he said, urging ECG to consolidate the gains by strengthening revenue protection and improving operational efficiency.
Calls for technology-driven revenue protection
To address persistent revenue losses, Mr Afenyo-Markin proposed a fully integrated revenue-protection system supported by technology.
The proposed system would include a single customer database, smart prepaid meters with remote monitoring, geographic information system mapping of customers and illegal-connection hotspots, and digital payment platforms with automated reconciliation.
He also recommended the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence to detect abnormal electricity consumption, alongside revenue dashboards and automated reporting systems linked to meter data and customer complaints.
He said ECG should strengthen field inspection teams, protect whistle-blowers, enforce consistent penalties against repeat offenders and work more closely with communities, local assemblies and traditional authorities to tackle electricity theft and other forms of revenue loss.
ECG debt poses risk to state finances
Mr Afenyo-Markin further warned that ECG’s indebtedness had grown beyond an internal corporate concern and had become a liability for the state.
He said unpaid obligations could delay grid maintenance and critical infrastructure upgrades while exposing the country to costly capacity-charge claims from independent power producers.
“What ECG fails to collect, it eventually owes,” he said, calling for institutional discipline to replace periodic government bailouts.
Among his proposals were strict enforcement of the revised Cash Waterfall Mechanism to ensure collections are channelled through a single audited account, renegotiation of legacy power purchase agreements on take-and-pay terms, and automatic monthly deductions by the Ministry of Finance to settle electricity bills owed by ministries, departments, agencies and other public institutions.
The Cash Waterfall Mechanism governs how revenues collected within the power sector are distributed to meet obligations along the electricity supply chain.
Afenyo-Markin recounts procurement reform
The Minority Leader also highlighted changes he said he led during his brief tenure as ECG Board Chairman to tighten procurement controls.
He said he encountered an arrangement under which vendors could deliver goods to the port and present ECG with a bill of lading without adequate verification of the goods actually received.
According to him, the arrangement exposed the company to financial obligations before it had taken custody of the goods, as well as port charges, delays and the risk of loss or damage.
“I led the Board to tie contractual completion and payment to verified delivery at ECG’s own facilities,” he said, insisting that the reform must be sustained.
Mr Afenyo-Markin concluded that Ghana’s power sector must shift from relying on consumers for additional revenue to improving operational governance and recovering money lost through inefficiencies.
He said full implementation of the Loss Reduction Programme, including boundary metering, smart prepaid meters and systematic electricity theft detection, alongside strict enforcement of the Cash Waterfall Mechanism, would help the state recover lost revenue without imposing further burdens on consumers.
He expressed gratitude to ECG Managing Director Kwame Kpekpena and his team for inviting him to share his experiences and recommendations for the company’s continued improvement.
Source: www.kumasimail.com
