Editorial: Enough of the lame excuses, ECG

This issue of the The Statesman is a day late in hitting the news stands; one of thousands of companies across the country to be hit by the crippling and unpredictable inefficiency of the Electricity Company of Ghana. Even for a country which is unfortunately used to regular power cuts, the last few weeks have been a trial: with unplanned and unannounced lights out almost every day, it seems.

The inefficiency of our national electricity provider is contributing to the inefficiency of this nation and the stagnation of its development. ECG must stop making excuses and stop shifting the blame, says The Statesman; it must act immediately to rectify this situation before heads rightfully begin to roll. It is not as though the ECG doesn?t have a plan; the Energy Commission of Ghana recently published its comprehensive strategy for the development of ECG up until 2025, detailing the way in which the company will expand its energy sources in order to meet the growing demand for electricity in this country. There were even three different scenarios detailed in the plan for different levels of growth in demand, giving the impression of an organisation in tune with its consumers and responsive to their needs.

What a mirage.

Because why then, with such a clear-cut and apparently well-thought-out strategy, is the economy of this country incapacitated by a dysfunctional national energy provider which haphazardly turns our power on and off like a yo-yo? Why, when plans are ostensibly in place to continue providing electricity for businesses in Ghana when demand rises, is our national electricity company incapable of meeting demand now?

Electricity is not like water; there is not a limited supply. More electricity can or should be produced when the need arises. Look at the industrial giants on our planet: did the Japanese turn around and say electricity was running out when the factories got too many? Did the United States tell enterprising entrepreneurs that there was not enough space on the market, that all the electricity was already in use? Do workers in Germany regularly work late into the night to make up for an unexpected lights-out during the day? No ? and there is simply no excuse from the ECG which can make up for its failure to deliver here. It is the inefficiency within the organisation which has led to the debilitating inefficiency without: if customers were properly billed for the electricity they consume, then any rise in demand should result in greater income, and greater income should result in more energy to provide for the growing consumer market. There should not be a problem.

Yet how many people are actually billed for the energy they use? It is all too easy to simply tap into the energy network ? siphoning off electricity that hasn?t been paid for, with the effect that not only ECG but also other electricity users lose out. What is the company doing to halt this trend?

Of course, the radical overhaul of ECG must be placed within the context of wider organisation or re-organisation within our country and its administration. With a vast proportion of the population living in irregular or unregistered housing, for example, it is little surprising that the ECG struggles to bill all of its customers, or track exactly who is taking how much electricity from where.

Even so, the culpability for these inefficiencies cannot be convincingly shifted from the shoulders of the ECG, who must be held largely accountable for the current crisis in our energy provision. The company has a mandate to provide for the electricity needs of this country; not only are they failing to do so, but the situation even appears to be getting worse. The ECG has already learnt that it cannot fire an economy simply on hydro-electric power; thermo-power and gas power are now in use ? but what of other energy resources if there is still not enough electricity to go around? From the 1960s nuclear scientists have been working in Ghana: what have they been doing, and why is there still no sign of nuclear power here, nearly half a century later?

The development of our nation must be powered by an effective national energy system ? going by the recent performance of ECG, there is little cause for optimism.