MiDA denies outright sale of ECG

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Ing. Owura Sarfo has denied reports that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) was billed for outright sale.

He said contrary to the reports and public opinion about the ECG deal the company would rather go through a concession programme that would raise money for both the government and for the company to operate better.

Those who would be going for the concessions would be making regular payments from the partnership arrangement for as long as they remained part of the company, and this would bring in the needed money to run the company better, the CEO said.

Ing. Owura Sarfo was presenting a paper on the MiDA Compact Two Agreement at a forum in Accra to introduce MiDA and what it does, explain the goals and objectives of Compact One and Two, and discuss ECG’s financial and operational turnaround under the Private Sector Partnership (PSP).

The forum was also aimed at explaining the importance of the PSP in the ECG and its roadmap, tariffs and related issues.

Under the agreement signed between the Ghana and the United States Governments in August last year, the Compact Two provides Ghana with a grant of $498.2 million to improve the power sector which is also called the ‘Power Compact’.

The ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround (EFOT) Project entails private sector participation in ECG , modernizing utility operations, reduction in commercial losses and improvement of revenue collection rates, technical loss reduction and outage reduction

According to Ing. Owura Sarfo the objectives of Compact Two were therefore to increase private sector investment and the productivity and profitability of micro, small and large scale businesses and also raise earning potential from self-employment and improved social outcomes for men and women.

He said it would further increase employment opportunities for men and women, and explained that because the power crises popularly called ‘Dumsor’ was negatively affecting the operational capabilities of industries and small-scale businesses, the new arrangement under the partnership would increase power supply to its customers.

In that position, the nation stands to attract investors, the industries and all other entrepreneurs would get the opportunity to employ more hands and also open the chance for a greater number of people to become self-employed under the Power Compact.

Ing. Owura Sarfo said a number of organizations and companies had expressed interest in the partnership both at the local and international levels, and expressed the hope that some of them would merge to improve their grounding for meeting the qualification criteria and other requirements.

The Government together with the Power Ministry as well as the ECG announced the bid to privatize the ECG to enable it become more efficient and improve operations, including the reduction of its commercial and technical problems.