The Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has alleged that some workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) sabotaged the government's efforts to digitalise revenue collection of the state power distributor.

The Akufo-Addo administration has been actively pursuing a digitalisation agenda, with Dr. Bawumia spearheading the initiative. Speaking at the AGM of Anti-corruption Agencies in Africa, Dr. Bawumia asserted that certain individuals within the IT unit at ECG introduced ransomware to disrupt the digitalisation process.

He elaborated that this malicious software caused the system to collapse, necessitating intervention from national security to identify and address the individuals responsible for the sabotage.

"They just kept it [monthly revenue] at GHC450 million every month. So, I said, 'We need to send in a team to digitalise the new collection of the Electricity Company of Ghana'. So, we sent in a team, and we began the process of digitalise", the vice president recalled.

“Can you believe that workers within the system sabotaged?" Dr Bawumia exclaimed, explaining: "They put ransomware into the whole system, and the system essentially collapsed".

"We had to send in national security to eventually find that it was some of the staff at the IT department who were culpable" he revealed.

He continued: “And we found the computer which the ransomware was injected in the system. It took us awhile to restore the system. They asked for a ransom to actually allow for this to work. Can you imagine? That we should pay, they submitted a bill that we should pay for the system to work".

“Anyway, they were arrested. And we restored the system and we digitised the system and we said that no more cash payments for electricity in Ghana. You only pay by your mobile money, electronic bank transfers. So that is now the case. Can you believe that from GHC450 million a month, collections have now gone to over a billion cedis a month.”