The Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Jinapor, has openly criticised the now-defunct Power Distribution Services (PDS) agreement, describing its collapse as the result of greed and political meddling rather than a fundamentally flawed concept.
Speaking on Wednesday, July 16, 2025, at the Government Accountability Series in Accra, Mr. Jinapor said the idea of involving the private sector in managing the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) was not inherently problematic. However, he argued that the implementation of the PDS arrangement was hijacked by self-serving actors.
“We are not going to use the PDS approach in bringing in the private sector. PDS was not a bad approach in terms of private sector involvement. The only bad thing was that a few greedy individuals decided to cannibalise the process and to sell the shares among themselves,” he stated.
Mr. Jinapor acknowledged that the PDS model, despite its failings, demonstrated initial benefits. “If they had started what we are doing now—ensuring value for money, a competitive process, and less political interference—even in its bad form, we saw that the revenue of ECG was increasing. So, it means that if we do it better, then we can get real results,” he explained.
The Minister’s comments are particularly notable given that many in the current administration, including himself, fiercely opposed the PDS deal when it was first introduced by the previous government.
Mr. Jinapor stressed that lessons had been learned and that any renewed efforts to bring in private participation would avoid the pitfalls that doomed the earlier project.
“I have assured you that we would not get involved in the shares of the new private involvement,” he declared, promising that transparency and accountability would underpin all future engagements.
