Residents of Golokuati in the Afadzato South District of the Volta Region are calling on the Government to make the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) district office operational, describing its continued abandonment as a costly burden on the already struggling community.
The office, which is said to be about 95 percent complete, has not been put to use for several years, despite its completion. The situation has compelled residents to travel long distances to access ECG services, a development they describe as burdensome and costly.
‘A deliberate sabotage’
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after a visit to the project site, the Assembly Member of the Golokuati/Wudome Electoral Area, Mr Eric Kudjo Nutsugah, expressed frustration over the delay in operationalising the office.
He said several appeals had been made through the District Assembly and the Member of Parliament for the area, but those calls appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
Mr Nutsugah noted that residents sometimes had to travel to Kpando or Hohoe to pay their electricity bills and access other ECG services, a situation which imposes an additional financial burden on the already poor residents. He therefore appealed to the relevant authorities to urgently intervene to ensure the office is opened to serve the people of Afadzato South and its environs.
Madam Etornam, a resident who was interviewed by the GNA, said the current circumstances in which they live appear to be a deliberate sabotage against residents of the area. She questioned why a district that has existed for over 12 years should still be grappling with such basic challenges, especially in the power distribution sector.
According to her, the operationalisation of the office would not only reduce cost and travel time but also improve revenue collection and service delivery by ECG in the district. She appealed to the government to show commitment to the development needs of the district by ensuring that completed projects are put to use.
A district left behind
The Afadzato South District, with its capital at Ve-Golokuati, was carved out of the then Afadzato District in 2012 by Legislative Instrument (L.I.) 2369. It is one of eighteen districts in the Volta Region and sits about 58 kilometres from Ho, the regional capital, 20 kilometres from Hohoe, and approximately 200 kilometres from Accra. The district shares a boundary with the Republic of Togo to the north-east.
Despite its status as a district capital for over a decade, Ve-Golokuati continues to lack basic services that residents say they should have access to without travelling to neighbouring districts.
The ECG customer service centre at Golokuati was part of a broader expansion project announced in 2021, when the power distributor commissioned two new Customer Service Centres at Adidome in the Central Tongu District and Abor in the Keta Municipality. At the time, ECG management stated that similar centres were to be constructed at Kpetoe, Anloga, Golokwati, New Ayoma and Dambai to boost the company’s strategic policy of promoting corporate visibility and delivering quality services to customers.
The then Managing Director of ECG, Mr Kwame Agyeman-Budu, said the company was prioritising customer satisfaction and investing in projects to that effect. The Adidome and Abor facilities included waiting areas for customers, cashier points, customer relations executive points, faults reporting points, parking lots, washrooms and fully equipped security posts, with robust ICT network connectivity.
In February 2023, ECG’s Regional Engineer, Michael Buabin, announced that new power stations were being built at Golokuati and Ayoma to expand and constantly stabilise supplies in those corridors, as part of efforts to enhance customer experience.
More than five years after those announcements, the Golokuati office remains unoperational, a situation residents say epitomises the neglect of the district.
A history of service challenges
The abandoned ECG office is not the only electricity-related challenge confronting the district. In June 2025, the Afadzato South District Assembly was disconnected from the national grid over a GH¢60,000 debt owed to ECG. The disconnection affected the assembly’s operations and underscored the strained relationship between the district and the power distributor.
Residents have also complained about erratic power supply in the area, with many lamenting that the unreliable service was stifling economic activity and discouraging investment in the district.
The Afadzato South MP, Frank Afriyie, has previously assured constituents of his commitment to solving the district’s challenges, sharing plans to bring important offices including the National Health Insurance Scheme and the ECG to the district to make services more accessible to everyone. Those plans are yet to materialise.
Growing frustration
The residents’ call for the operationalisation of the ECG office adds to a growing list of abandoned or uncompleted projects in the district, including health and road infrastructure, which they say have left them feeling neglected by successive governments.
They are urging the government and ECG management to act urgently, warning that the continued closure of the office is deepening the district’s underdevelopment and imposing unnecessary hardship on ordinary citizens.
The Afadzato South District has a population of over 114,000, according to estimates, and covers a land area of 553 square kilometres.
