"Nana Yaa Jantuah Calls for Full Audit of Energy Sector Debt Discrepancies"

" Nana Yaa Jantuah Calls for Full Audit of Energy Sector Debt Discrepancies \r\n A senior official at the Presidency has called for an urgent and comprehensive audit of Ghana\u2019s energy sector liabilities, as concerns mount over the sector\u2019s mounting debt, fiscal opacity, and its growing strain on the national budget. \r\n Speaking at a high-level policy dialogue on Ghana\u2019s energy sector and economic transformation, Nana Yaa Jantuah, a Presidential Staffer and former Director of Public Relations and External Affairs at the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), questioned the consistency and credibility of official data on energy sector indebtedness. \r\n \u201cToday, we have $1.3 billion. Tomorrow, we have $3 billion. Who is not doing their accounting very well?\u201d Ms Jantuah queried. \u201cIt is imperative that we go back into the books and interrogate what the actual figures are.\u201d \r\n Her comments come as legacy energy sector debt, compounded by persistent revenue shortfalls, forex volatility, and regulatory inefficiencies, continues to undermine the financial sustainability of power utilities such as ECG. \r\n Ms Jantuah, who described electricity as \u201cthe nerve of the economy\u201d, warned that the inability to address revenue collection inefficiencies and enforce compliance with regulatory key performance indicators (KPIs) risks collapsing the power distribution chain \u2014 from ECG and NEDCo to bulk suppliers and independent power producers (IPPs). \r\n Citing industry practices, she lamented chronic shortfalls in tariff collection and rising system losses that regularly exceed approved regulatory benchmarks. \u201cThere is a loss benchmark built into the tariff, which is 21%, but ECG always goes overboard,\u201d she said. \u201cIf the utilities don\u2019t collect, the sector collapses.\u201d \r\n She also acknowledged structural difficulties in certain geographies that make collections challenging, but maintained that utilities must still be held accountable. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s not about bad payers. It\u2019s about a lack of diligence to collect,\u201d she stressed. \r\n On the matter of subsidies, Ms Jantuah welcomed recent efforts by the Energy Ministry to avoid ad hoc subsidies that previously distorted utility finances. \u201cI am glad that in the last two tariff cycles, the minister hasn\u2019t asked for subsidies to override PURC tariffs,\u201d she said. \r\n Her remarks also revisited the role of the Energy Sector Levies Act (ESLA), originally established to resolve legacy debts. Ms Jantuah argued that political interference had undermined the law\u2019s intent. \u201cWe need to take the politics out. ESLA was meant to deal with legacy debt, but it ended up being used for something else,\u201d she noted. \r\n With energy sector debt consuming as much as 2% of Ghana\u2019s GDP, Ms Jantuah concluded by advocating for deeper fiscal discipline, robust regulatory enforcement, and depoliticisation of utility oversight. \r\n \u201cThe time has come for us to get to the fundamentals, interrogate the debt, and put in place real regulatory KPIs,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we do not, the sector will remain a drag on economic transformation no matter how many hours the lights stay on.\u201d "

"Nana Yaa Jantuah Calls for Full Audit of Energy Sector Debt Discrepancies"

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