Vice President and New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has revealed a shocking case of sabotage by some Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) staff, who attempted to undermine the government’s digitalization efforts.
Speaking at the 2024 annual general meeting of Anti-corruption Agencies in Africa, Dr. Bawumia disclosed that while the government was working to implement a paperless system, some ECG IT unit staff countered it with ransomware, affecting the system’s performance and eventually causing it to collapse.
According to Dr. Bawumia, the intervention of National Security led to the discovery and arrest of the saboteurs, who had demanded a staggering GH₵450 million monthly to restore the system.
“They just kept it at GH₵450 million every month, so I said we need to send in a team to digitalize the new collection of the Electricity Company of Ghana, so we sent in a team, and we began the process of digitalizing. Can you believe that workers within the system sabotaged it? They put in 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 stated.
Dr. Bawumia’s revelation highlights the challenges faced by the government in its digitalization drive and the need for vigilance against internal sabotage.
