Samuel Dubik Masubir Mahama, the immediate past Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has disclosed that the supposed missing containers belonging to the Company were auctioned by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
Mr. Mahama made the disclosure whilst speaking on Ghana Tonight on TV3.
According to him, containers, per international supply chain logistics, have unique numbers which cannot just disappear.
“A container is not like a piece of paper that you’ll fold and throw away. For international supply chain logistics, a container has a unique number,” he said Wednesday, April 02, 2025.
He explained that there are processes at the port which needs to be adhered to, including contacting the appropriate stakeholders.
“The committee said a 1346 containers are missing. How are they missing? There are processes at the port. Let’s go through those processes. Have we spoken to the shipping line? Have we visited the other terminals? Have we gone through the right channels?” he quizzed, revealing that the GRA auctioned the containers before his exit.
The former ECG MD explained that his outfit complained about the auction which went on at the time but all to no avail.
“The last I know before I left was that [the] containers were auctioned. We did write to GRA to complain about those containers being auctioned,” he stated emphatically.
When asked by host, Alfred Ocansey, who auctioned the containers, Mahama said “it would be by the GRA because when it goes to an unclaimed sector of the port, it is still within the jurisdiction of the Ghana Revenue Authority – the Customs Division.”
On the reason why the containers were auctioned, he said that would lie within the purview of the Customs Division of the GRA who may give the reasons necessitating the auction of the containers.
“It’s within their purview. They might say ‘the container has overstayed’, the owner hasn’t come…’,” he stated.
On the issue of the ECG failing to clear the containers leading to the alleged auctioning by the GRA as Mr. Mahama claimed, he said the fact that the power distribution company failed to clear its assets at the port did not warrant the auctioning without the ECG’s notice.
“So the question is, if ECG has failed to clear the containers, is that a good reason to auction the container with no recourse to ECG?” he quizzed.
His lamentations follow the arrest of 12 Chinese nationals and a Ghanaian by operatives of the National Security in connection with the missing containers.
The Minister of Energy and Green Transition, John Jinapor, has since been tasked with compiling a comprehensive report on the matter.
He has therefore directed that the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) looks into the circumstances leading to the auctioning of the containers to help bring the perpetrators to book.
ECG’s missing containers: I have formally requested NIB to take over investigations – Jinapor
