ACEP Boss: Gov’t must go for ECG privatisation

The Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Muhammed Amin Adam, has said if privatisation of state power distributor, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), is what will make it more viable and efficient, then the government must go for it.

The Government of Ghana has denied speculations that it intends privatising the power distributor, but Mr Adam told Paa Kwesi Asare on BUSINESS FOCUS Tuesday on STARR 103.5FM that an agreement signed between the country and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) for a US$500-million investment into Ghana’s power sector requires that ECG be privatised.

“As a requirement for Government to even get the first disbursement of the MCC-2 money, Government must, in writing, indicate that it has started processes of getting private sector participation in ECG and for the second tranche to be disbursed, Government should have done the privatisation,” he said.

“And so what the MCC is doing, is to make ECG financially viable so that it becomes a credible off taker: if it will take privatisation to do that I am not against it.

“…Therefore I think that Government should be decisive in this. We don’t want five years on, ten years on, for us to come back sacking ECG bosses for nonperformance or for reasons we will not tell the public.”

He emphasised that he is in favour of privatisation if that is what “will position ECG to become more efficient to be able to reduce the distribution losses.”

Currently, the ECG loses 22 percent of the power it evacuates from producers for onward distribution. The industry benchmark is 15 percent.