National security must be proactive than reactive!

 We applaud the giant strides by the national security agencies in getting to the bottom of the missing Electricity Company of Ghana(ECG) containers, stuffed with essential materials, appar­ently imported into the country for electrification projects, to en­sure energy sufficiency to drive economic growth, that have gone into wrong hands, follow­ing a hold-up at the Tema port.

The Minister of Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor, has ordered a full-scale investigations into the 1,328 missing containers, when a technical committee set up to probe into the issue submitted its report, as we reported in the Wednesday, March 26, 2025, issue of our newspaper, The Ghanaian Times.

The report on ECG’s con­tainer hold-up at the Tema port and related procurement issues revealed that the estimated value of the materials in the missing ECG containers is GH¢1.5 billion. This amount is stagger­ing, and the public deserves an answer, in our quest to ensuring public accountability of state resources.

We at The Ghanaian Times are worried about the acts of commission and omission at our ports, resulting in such large numbers of containers slipping from the hands of our public officers, who are supposed to keep account of these containers until they get into the hands of the rightful owners—and in this case the ECG.

The security agencies in their latest raid at the Korle Lagoon, Accra, recovered large quantities of the cables and other equip­ment at a scrap dealers shop. We are told the scrap dealers had bolted before the security agen­cies could arrest them.

The security agencies had earlier made some arrest at Shai Hills, in Accra, of persons sus­pected to be in possession of the essential materials from the miss­ing containers, while others were also seized from a truckload in the Gomoa area, in the Central Region. The missing cables have gone wide, and we can safely assume that it is a network of criminal gangs.

We are told that the recovered items are kept at a safe ware­house, pending further directives.

The question we seek to ask is that how safe is this warehouse, and that the items will not go missing again? Who watches the watchman? Once the items got missing from officialdom, it is the same human institutions.

The Ghanaian Times require full accountability of the recovered items. In that case, we suggest that the items should immediate­ly be deployed for the intended projects.

We urge the security agencies to sharpen their intelligence gathering machinery, and to be more proactive in nipping in the bud, the nefarious activities in and around our ports and other public space.

In fact, people behind these missing containers should be smoked out, named and shamed, and swiftly put before the court, for the law to take its course, to serve as deterrent to others.

The nation cannot allow these nefarious activities to continue with impudence, much so in an era of resetting and accountable governance. The public officers responsible for these missing containers must be brought to book!

The ECG cannot absolve itself from blame, we there­fore, support the resolve of the minister of energy to restructure ECG’s procurement unit, replace the current leadership with qual­ified procurement professionals and introduce very stringent control over procurement plans. The nation cannot continue to pay people for lack of due diligence.