2020 IMANIFesto: How and why NPP scored 57.57% for energy sector performance

Policy think tank, IMANI Africa has published details of how a score of 57.57% was given to the governing New Patriotic Party’s commitment to the 2016 manifesto promises on the energy sector.

IMANI Africa notes in its analysis that the NPP government has pursued several energy supply security strategies such as:

- the expansion of generation capacity from 4,743MW in 2017 to 5,083MW in 2019 as a result of the completion of the Cenpower 340MW power plant;

- investment in other sources of supply such as solar and wind energy and improved domestic gas production to guarantee fuel supply security.

“In spite of this progress, high capacity charges, high cost of take or pay commitments (US$ 600million annually), power sector debt, and lack of sustained electricity tariff reduction remain a challenge in the sector.

“The oil and gas sector has seen a major boost post-ITLOS ruling in respect of Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire maritime disputes. Production levels have soared from 58,658,063.54 barrels per annum of crude oil in 2017 to 71,439,585barrels of crude oil in 2019 from the Jubilee Field, TEN field, and SGN field. Ghana is progressively implementing laws and policies relevant to developing a sound regulatory space. The first oil and gas round was completed in July 2019,” the think gave a background of its analysis.

It said the New Patriotic Party made a total of 37 promises with regards to the energy sector which covers the power, oil, and gas sub-sectors.

“The government implemented 57.57 per cent of the total promises in its four-year term. According to the IMANIFesto assessment framework, this is satisfactory performance,” IMANI Africa said.

The policy think tank scores a governing party’s performance under various sectors of the economy each year under the IMANIFesto initiative.

The overall score it gave to the NPP, after assessing all of its 510 manifesto promises was 56.77%, which it rates as “fairly satisfactory.”

The IMANIFesto is a framework that assesses political parties’ manifestos using a coding system comprised of quantitative indicators.

It analyses the status of implementation of pledges contained in the manifesto of the ruling party, the feasibility of manifestos presented by political parties before elections and the impact of their promises on the livelihood of citizens.

Below is IMANI’s detailed discussion of NPP government’s performance in fulling its 2016 manifesto promises on the energy sector.