The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) is asking government to channel part of the country’s oil revenue to support the power sector.
[contextly_sidebar id=”C7ciWXLXO3RByiK0Ij8C7gMnjfu455X7″]According to them the suggestion if implemented could save the nation from the recurrent power crisis in the future.
ACEP has estimated that Ghana needs more than $4 billion each year to support the power sector.
Speaking on Eyewitness news, the head of the Policy Unit at the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Ishmael Ackah said the nation cannot always depend on foreign partners for support.
“We need more to actually support power generation, distribution and distribution. I did say that since we cannot rely on external partners for everything, the MCCE is almost giving us $500 million, we should also try and find out locally what we can also get from somewhere either through government’s saving or even if we can use a little portion of the [Annual Budget Funding Amount] ABFA to support power investment.”
He further explained that there four areas in which the ABFA is invested in, namely; agriculture, roads and other infrastructure, loans and amortization and capacity building.
“Now when you take roads and other infrastructure, what actually constitute this other infrastructure?” Ishmael Ackah asked.
He said “this other infrastructure, we can rope in the energy sector somewhere so that whatever we are allocating to this other infrastructure we can have a portion going to the power sector.”
He also recommended that debts that government owed ECG must be paid promptly adding that ECG must be reformed and the nation’s power sources diversified to end the power crisis in the country.
Meanwhile, the Electricity Company (ECG) of Ghana is shedding a 12 hours light 24 hour outage system in the country because of more than three years of erratic power supply.
A lot of companies and businesses have complained that the situation is affecting their business since they usually depend on generators as alternative power sources.
Ghana, according to the Economic Division of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research’s (ISSER), loses about $2.2 million daily due to the effect of the power crisis on on Micro and Small Enterprises (MSE) only.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana