In Ghana, electricity isn’t just a utility—it's an emotion. The moment the lights blink, whole neighbourhoods remember the old soundtrack: generators coughing into life, fridges sweating, businesses counting losses by the hour. That’s why the Finance Ministry’s claim lands like a headline with weight: $1.47 billion paid in 2025 to clear legacy energy debts, after years of arrears that officials say helped drive outages and instability. The message is political and practical at once: we’ve paid, now the system can breathe.
But the real story is where the money went—and why it matters. Ghana says it replenished the World Bank Partial Risk Guarantee, which had been drained, by repaying $597.15 million (including interest), restoring a backstop tied to gas supply from the Offshore Cape Three Points / Sankofa ecosystem and investment confidence in the sector. It also settled about $480 million in outstanding gas invoices to ENI and Vitol, and cleared roughly $393 million in legacy debts owed to independent power producers—Reuters cites payments including $120 million to Karpowership and $59.4 million to Cenpower. It’s not charity; it’s triage: keep gas flowing, calm producers, reduce the chance the grid goes thirsty again.
So, will the lights stay on now? Not automatically. This is a reset, not a cure. The same statement that celebrates the cleanup also leans hard on discipline—staying current, using mechanisms meant to prevent arrears from quietly rebuilding. And the structural leak is still there: revenue collection and losses in the distribution chain have long been part of the problem—President Mahama previously pointed to major inefficiencies at ECG and pushed for private-sector involvement in billing to stop the bleeding. Ghana has bought itself credibility and time; the next test is brutal and simple: keep payments current, tighten collection, and stop letting politics turn power into debt again.
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