One of the key determinants of the economic prosperity of any country is electricity. From the domestic to industrial sector, electricity plays a major role in effective service delivery thereby serving as a constituent by which the various components of the economy of a country flourishes.

Ghana’s journey towards the provision of universal access to electricity hasn’t been without hitches. Since the establishment of a National Electrification Scheme in the 1980s to supervise the implementation of the National Electrification Master Plan, the country has continuously progressed with the aim of extending power supply to every part of the country by the year 2020. Although this vision is yet to be realised, Ghana’s commitment towards electricity expansion remains unabated.

There has been several interventions over the period with the recent being plans of the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) to inject US$330 million into the power sector over a period of 18 months. This forms part of the fund made accessible under the Power Compact of which is intended for infrastructural as well as business process-related projects that will improve the operational efficiencies in order to cut commercial and technical losses; thereby improving the company’s finances and allow power to be dispensed efficiently. How far will this assistance go to help Ghana achieve the above reality since this happens not to be the first time such support has been extended to Ghana? 

Despite some improvements over the period, the situation hasn’t been the best for years now and the current condition of power supply leaves room for much to be desired and the business community cannot be left out of the many losses that comes with it. Considering therefore how negatively electricity insecurity impacts the productivity of virtually every sector of the nation, it’s in the best interest of the government to find a lasting solution to this threat. While at it, there’s the need for policy makers and power supply agencies to help mitigate the impact by at least ensuring that outages are well planned and also facilitate public’s accessibility to alternative electricity supplies. Beyond this must be the expansion of the prepaid metering system, restructuring of the current tariff regime to reflect and recover actual generation cost, and promotion of programmes on energy efficiency etc.

Source: GGEA