Energy Analyst, Benjamin Nsiah has rated the Akuffo Addo/Bawumia government’s pefromance in the Energy and Petroleum Sector in the past four years at an underwhelming 20%.
The NPP in its 2020 manifesto outlined that its priority in the Energy and Petroleum Sector to “increase efficiency and ensure value-for-money for all activities, including reliable and affordable power generation and distribution, and further development of the oil and gas sector.”
The party set out a plan to deliver on those promises. These included the enforcement of competitive procurement of power, reduction in losses of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Northern Electricity Company (NEDCO) and enforcement of Local Content policies for the Upstream and Downstream sub-sectors amongst others.
However, sharing his assessment of the government’s delivery on these goals, Mr Nsiah noted that Ghana’s electricity tariffs continues to be “one of the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa”.
“Power is still expensive, in terms of affordability, the government could not achieve that. We think that comparing ourselves to South Africa, comparing ourselves to China, comparing ourselves to even our neighbour, our electricity is very expensive, and the government could not achieve that particular target between 2020 and 2024.”, he noted.
Mr Nsiah, however, noted that government has taken some positive steps over the past four years in achieving its goal of improving revenue collection, despite more room for improvement.
“So I think that they may be doing well in terms of recovering some money from their debtors, which the major debtor is government. But that doesn’t mean that they are doing so well because the data still continues to show that ECG is not even able to mobilise 50% of power sold to them.”
Meanwhile, sharing some recommendations ahead of the NPP’s 2024 Manifesto launch on Sunday August 18, 2024, Mr Nsiah called for the division of ECG into subgroups, based on “regional or Zonal levels” to improve efficiency.
He also urged the NPP to include a plan to improve affordability of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to improve its usage and reduce the usage of Charcoal in Ghanaian households.
NPP 2020 MANIFESTO – Energy and Petroleum
Over the next four years, our priority in the energy and petroleum sector is to increase efficiency and ensure value-for-money for all activities, including reliable and affordable power generation and distribution, and further development of the oil and gas sector, as well as renewable sources. We will pursue this goal through the following measures:
* Enforcing competitive procurement of power, the least cost fuel procurement, and minimising excess capacity charges through the ongoing renegotiation exercise to improve upon the financial health of the sector
* Reducing losses, particularly in power distribution, by ensuring ECG and NEDCo implement incentive-based loss reduction targets for all District Managers
* Significantly improving revenue collection with the implementation of remote sensing technology which is currently being piloted by ECG
* Completing ongoing rural electrification projects to ensure transformation of our rural economies
* Continuing the Auction-Based Licensing strategy for exploratory Oil Blocks to ensure value for money, and
* Enforcing Local Content policies for the Upstream and Downstream sub-sectors.
Source: classfmonline.com
