A senior Research and Policy Analyst at the Institute for Energy Security (IES), Smith Boahene has welcomed the private sector participation in the management of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
Speaking on Starr FM’s Morning Show, Morning Starr, on Monday, May 18, 2026, he argued that this could help revitalize ECG, which has repeatedly incurred losses over the years.
“Private sector participation in ECG is dependent on the approach, one, independent of clear-cut KPIs that the entity must actually adhere to. And if you look at the challenges in ECG, it precedes decades now as we’ve been experiencing commercial and technical losses in ECG. The idea is not the same as privatization, which is important that the media, I mean, carry out this education,” he said.
To Boahene, this education is very necessary as it would help do away with the notion that allowing private sector participate in the running of ECG is same as privatizing the country’s energy sector.
“Private sector participation is not the same privatization of ECG. What you have is where you have an ECG as an institution, and the government will say that we want to adopt a situation where say a private entity will manage revenue collection, will manage infrastructure, will manage so and so,” he argued
The debate on allowing private sector partake in the affairs of ECG follows a recommendation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) urging Ghana to fast-track private sector involvement in ECG’s operations to address deep-rooted challenges in the energy sector which could continue to threaten public finances and economic stability.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has however vowed to resist the move, arguing that ECG has made notable improvements in revenue performance and operational reach.
Despite describing the concerns raised by the TUC as “fairly valid”, Boahene believes that their concerns are based on misrepresentation which to him, may have been made either a knowingly or unknowingly.
“It is true ECG’s revenue has increased. It is also important to note that ECG’s revenue has increased all right, but how is that sustainable? Is that a blanket panacea of all the challenges that ECG has been facing since the 2000s? Revenue may have increased on one aspect, and even, you know, most state agencies owe ECG in thousands, millions of Ghana cedis. How is the breakdown of such revenue increases? Is it because they’ve been able to, I mean, recover these debts that are owed them by the state institution, that is why their revenue collection has increased? Has the revenue collection increased because it has solved the endemic problem of illegal connection? So, the fact that ECG revenue has increased alone is not a guarantee that ECG is doing better. But rather, we need to take a critical look at the entirety of the factors that will necessitate that ECG should perform from henceforth,” he said.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh
