Following the government’s digitalization initiatives, revenue collection at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) increased dramatically, according to Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

According to Dr. Bawumia, the ECG’s digitalization of operations has improved revenue collection. He emphasized that the ECG’s monthly revenue collection has increased from GHC450 million to $1 billion.

During the 14th Commonwealth Regional Conference for African Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies, Dr. Bawumia called on member nations to adopt Ghana’s anti-corruption strategy, which involves using digital tools.

He lamented the ECG employees at the IT department’s early introduction of malware into the system.

“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.

Dr. Bawumia 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.