1328 ECG Containers containing cables and transformers totaling approximately 5Million USD go missing

The greatest scandal garnering significant interest in our Nation, since President Mahama took back the reins of government is arguably that of the now infamous ECG missing containers. It has been revealed by the Energy Minister Mr. John Abdulai Jinapor that an investigation launched by him into ECG’s procurement practices has uncovered gross mismanagement, reckless overspending to the tune of several billions of Ghana cedis, fraught with procurement abuses, and systemic corruption.

1328 resembles a secret code, but it is not.

Out of 2,462 containers listed by ECG in its Uncleared Containers List (UCL), 1,328 remains unaccounted for, with both Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) and ECG unable to explain the whereabouts of these missing containers. In a further twist, the Honourable Minister received a tip-off about the location of the containers, leading to forty of them being found in Kpone, with some cables found in a smelting factory at Shai Hills. Arrests of some Chinese and Indian nationals have been subsequently been made.

These developments if, true, taint the ECG former Managing Director’s tenure with questionable management practices including a pattern of frivolous overspending, procurement abuses, and corruption.

While the Energy Minister has vowed to bring the perpetrators of these financial malpractices to book, it is doubtful whether this will practically happen, as it has been observed that the current minister may have business and friendship ties with the former MD of ECG Mr. Dubik Mahama. By his own admission, the Energy minister has now formally written to the AG, Mr. Dominic Ayine for the matter to be further investigated with possibility of making the culprits answerable in court. It is however telling that, Mr. Dominic Ayine was the former lawyer of Mr. Dubik Mahama, and had defended him more than once when his management reputation at ECG was called into question a year ago.

While there have been calls by some members of the NDC to arrest the Honourable Minority Leader of Parliament Mr. Afenyo Markin (who during the period under consideration was the ECG Board Chairman), Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh (former Energy Minister at the time of these purported mismanagements), and the former MD of ECG, Dubik Mahama himself, the undeniable political ties among them is stifling, making it difficult to expect that justice will actually be done. The Ghanaian populace are deeply outraged. Hopefully, the outrage shown by the ordinary Ghanaian will mount enough pressure for some real accountability to be done.