By Jibril Abdul Mumuni
Accra, Aug 10, GNA – Stakeholders in the energy sector have urged the government to stick to the Millennium Power Compact (MCC) proposals for addressing power sector losses and increasing revenue generation at the Electricity Company of Ghana.
The stakeholders, representing heads of civil society organizations (CSOs) in the energy sector, made the call in an exclusive interview with thr Ghana News Agency.
Mr. Benjamin Boakye, the Executive Director of the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), said the government could implement some of the ideas of the Millennium Compact.
He said some of the ideas of the compact, particularly the engagement of the private sector and privatization of ECG, must be reconsidered by the government.
He said,’’ I don’t think there is any compact available for Ghana; we must have our own strategy and go through the same procedure; we have to revisit the document, borrow some of the ideas, and put up a tender for a private company to run the ECG.’’
He criticized the Finance Minister’s decision to engage the IPPs to restructure their debts since energy sector debt were not financial instruments.
He advised the government to deal with the leakages in the power sector to reduce the debts.
Duncan Amoah, the Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), said the government must remain committed to the Millennium Compact to save ECG.
He blamed the revenue and distribution losses of ECG on institutional deficiencies of the company, owing to the fact that the company only makes 11 percent payment of the Independent Power Producers (IPP) claim.
He urged ECG to improve its accounting mechanism through proper tariff management and an effective metering and billing system.
He also blamed the revenue losses on insufficient meters due to the difficulty in accessing prepaid meters by the company’s customers.
He said if the government failed to improve the revenue generation capacity of ECG, the energy sector debts could worsen.
He advised the ECG to scale up its revenue efforts by improving the provision of meters and customer service.
The Millennium Compact Agreement included the Access Project, the Power Generation Sector Improvement Project, the Energy Efficiency and
Demand Side Management Project, the Regulatory Strengthening and Capacity Building Project, and the ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround Project.
GNA