‘Missing GH¢850m funds’ – Why four PDS officials were arrested

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Makay
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PDS and ECG

Benjamin Alpha, the spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney-General, has revealed that the four people arrested in connection with the Power Distribution Services (PDS) were questioned over missing GH¢850 million Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) funds.

According to him, the issue stems from a transitional arrangement in which both assets and liabilities were expected to be settled before arbitration proceedings were concluded.

Speaking on Eyewitness News the same day, Mr Alpha explained, “Their charges cannot be discussed at this point because this is a very preliminary stage”.

“The investigation officers want to understand the full circumstances under which these monies left this account… They have been invited, questioned, and granted bail pending further investigation.”

Earlier, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, the Minister of State in charge of Government Communications, stated that individuals linked to Power Distribution Services (PDS) have been arrested by the Bureau of National Intelligence (BNI) in connection with ongoing investigations into the transfer of large sums of money believed to belong to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

The suspects have been identified as Philip Ayensu, Viraj Phat, Sophia Korkor, and Justice Menka-Premoh.

According to an official update, the arrests were carried out last week as part of efforts to probe the alleged financial transactions. The four have since been granted bail and are expected to assist with further investigations.

Felix Kwakye Ofosu made this known in an X post shared on Monday, May 4, 2026, which read, ORAL UPDATE.

The Bureau of National Intelligence (BNI) arrested the following persons affiliated with PDS last week as part of investigations into the transfer of large sums of money believed to belong to ECG.

1. Philip Ayensu

2. Viraj Phat

3. Sophia Korkor

4. Justice Menka-Premoh.

The quartet have since been given bail pending further investigations”.

It will be recalled that the then Akufo-Addo government, through the ECG, suspended and later terminated the concession agreement following the emergence that the payment guarantees provided by PDS were fraudulent.

PDS, following the termination, sued ECG, accusing Ghana’s power distributor of wrongfully cancelling the contract.

They asked the international arbitration tribunal to declare that the termination of the concession agreement was illegal, and also asked the tribunal to award it a judgment debt of nearly $390 million, including direct costs of about US$39.4 million, and alleged lost profits of US$351.5 million.

However, the ECG, through its lawyers, maintained that the termination of the agreement was fully vindicated and in the interest of Ghana.

The lawyer for ECG added that PDS failed to exercise due diligence in verifying the authenticity of the payment guarantees, an omission that fundamentally undermined the concession.

The international arbitration tribunal then ruled in favour of Ghana’s power distributor ECG.

The international arbitration tribunal cited that the fraudulent guarantees justified its termination of the concession agreement.

Meanwhile, President John Dramani Mahama has said that the Power Distribution Services (PDS) concession arrangement failed because of mismanagement and the pursuit of personal interests.

He noted that the PDS was an initiative to bring private-sector efficiency into the country’s electricity distribution system, but collapsed due to personal interests.

Speaking at the sod-cutting ceremony for the Multi-purpose Solar Energy Project at the Dawa Industrial Park in Agotor on Thursday, November 6, Mahama stated, “I know that there was an attempt to involve the private sector in power utility and distribution. We all remember the example with PDS. PDS was not a bad thing; it was just handled wrongly, and many people had personal interests in it. That’s why it failed. But there is something to be said for injecting private-sector efficiency into public utilities”.

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