ACEP Seeks IMF Intervention to Enforce Single Account Operation by ECG to Aid Track Company’s Cash Flows
Policy Lead, Petroleum and Conventional Energy at the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Kodzo Yaotse, says the policy think tank may have to call on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to direct impress on the ECG to operate a single account to make it easier track the power company’s cash flows.
The assertion by the energy expert with ACEP follows the failure of repeated directives from the President and the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to the ECG to operate a single bank account.
According to ACEP, there is a lack of transparency surrounding ECG’s financial operations with operating 61 separate bank accounts across 16 financial institutions, hence making it difficult for auditors to track the company’s cash flows.
This fragmented accounting structure, ACEP notes, violates the clear directive to consolidate revenues into a single account, a measure designed to ensure greater accountability and reduce opportunities for financial impropriety.
Since Ghana entered an IMF program in 2022, one of the core conditions was for the government to address ECG’s persistent financial shortfalls, which have placed an unsustainable strain on public resources.
“We may have to call on the IMF to direct the ECG to operate a single bank account looking at the fact that both presidential and PURC directives to the ECG to operate a single account have not been heeded.
“Given the priority of the energy sector to the IMF under the $3bn programme and the eagerness of the Government to comply with the programme and achieve all quantitative targets for the various tranches, it is very likely that a directive by the IMF for ECG to operate a single account will be complied to by the ECG,” he asserted speaking during a Capacity Building Programme for the Media in Enhancing Advocacy for Financial Sustainability in Ghana’s Power Sector.
ECG’s financial shortfall, ACEP noted, has ballooned from GHS 295 million in 2017 to GHS 9.7 billion by 2022.
According to ACEP, data from PURC shows that ECG experienced under-recoveries of GHS 13.6 billion between August 2023 and July 2024, with an alarming revenue collection rate of just 43% over this period.
Furthermore, ACEP cited the Energy Sector Recovery Program, which estimates that power sector shortfalls between 2019 and 2023 amounted to approximately US$8.25 billion—a figure ACEP described as an unsustainable drain on public resources.
According to ACEP, currently, the total energy sector debt stands at some $1.74bn with over $1.2bn owed in legacy IPP debts; $450m owed for gas payments to operators of the OCTP oil field, $20m debt to WAPCo and revenue under-recoveries of some $67m by the ECG.
