ECG staff used ransomware to sabotage paperless system, can you imagine they even demanded a ransom before the system can work – Bawumia

The Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has revealed a concerning incident regarding the government's efforts to digitalize revenue collection, implicating officials of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in sabotage.

Under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo, the government has been actively pursuing an agenda of digitalization, with Dr. Bawumia spearheading these initiatives.

Speaking at the Annual AGM of Anti-corruption Agencies in Africa, Dr. Bawumia disclosed that certain individuals within the IT unit at ECG deliberately introduced ransomware to disrupt the digitalization efforts. This malicious act resulted in the collapse of the system, impeding progress in revenue collection.

Dr. Bawumia emphasized that it was only through the intervention of national security agencies that the perpetrators behind this sabotage were uncovered.

“They just kept it 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.

“Can you believe that workers within the system sabotaged, 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.

“And we found the computer which the ransomware was injected in the system. It took us a while 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,” he emphasised.