By: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
An audit conducted into the 2024 financial year of Ghana’s power distributor the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Ghana has uncovered a GH¢5.3 billion revenue under-declaration.
The audit report captured GH¢5,331,228,363 discrepancy between the Cash Waterfall Mechanism (CWM) and ECG’s Cash Settlement Platform Report.
PwC found that the power-distributing company significantly underreported its revenue to the regulator, further exacerbating financial instability in Ghana’s power sector.
According to the audit, ECG recorded revenue collections of GH¢15.8 billion in 2024 but declared only GH¢10.4 billion to the CWM, effectively omitting GH¢5.3 billion from official records.
This raises concerns about ECG’s financial practices and the broader implications for the country’s struggling energy sector, which faces liquidity constraints, unpaid debts to Independent Power Producers (IPPs), and inefficiencies in revenue management.
Despite under-declaring its revenue, ECG also failed to properly allocate funds to key stakeholders in the power value chain. Of the GH¢10.4 billion officially reported, only GH¢6.5 billion was disbursed, leaving a GH¢3.9 billion shortfall unaccounted for.
The audit indicated that further discrepancies were identified between tariff revenue collections. The CWM recorded GH¢10.44 billion for the January–December 2024 period, whereas bank statements validated revenue collections at GH¢15.53 billion.
This, it said, resulted in a net under-declared amount of GH¢5.09 billion when comparing CWM figures to validated bank data.