Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice President of the Republic and flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has disclosed that his efforts to improve revenue collection at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) was sabotaged by some staff.
He says when he introduced the digitised system of revenue collection for the power distribution company, some staff at the IT department blocked it with a ransomware and demanded that they get paid for it before the system could work.
According to the Vice President, it required the intervention of the National Security to detect the defect with the system to get it restored before getting it operationalised.
He made the disclosure at the 14th Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa, whilst urging members to emulate Ghana’s efforts which saw over 100 per cent rise in revenue after going digital.
He noted the system has reduced corruption at the sector, stressing that the ECG’s revenue collection shot up to a billion from GHC450 million monthly.
“Can you believe that workers within the system sabotaged it, 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 stressed, “we found the computer in which the ransomware was injected into the system. It took us a while to restore the system. They asked for a ransom actually 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 digitized the system, and we said that no more cash payments for electricity in Ghana. You only pay with your mobile money or electronic bank transfers. So that is now the case. Can you believe that from GHC450 million a month, the collection has now gone to over a billion cedis a month?” he asked.
My goal is for Ghana to have the first block chain-powered government in Africa – Dr Bawumia
