Discharge your new mandate well - Amewu tells Energy Commission

The Energy Minister John Peter Amewu has charged the Energy Commission (EC) to carry out its newly mandated role of promoting Ghana's local content and local participation in the electricity supply industry.

This, he said, the EC must do by ensuring that the laws and regulations are duly implemented to the letter.

He noted that Parliament, in 2017, passed a new Legislative Instrument (LI) to give Energy Commission some additional responsibilities.

According to the Energy Minister, local content and local participation policies are being adopted by nations as vehicles to create jobs and wealth for the citizenry.

He added that: "This strategy has proven to be useful in addressing unemployment, or better still youth unemployment, which constitutes one of the biggest challenges confronting many nations, including our dear nation Ghana."

John Peter Amewu made these remarks in a speech read for him by his Deputy in-charge of Finance and Infrastructure Joseph Cudjoe, at the launch of the 20th Anniversary of Energy Commission.

The anniversary, which is under the theme: 'Managing and Regulating the Development and Utilisation of Ghana's Energy Resources', brought together several stakeholders including the Managing Director of Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Isaac Osei, Executive Director of Africa Centre of Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye, Chief Executive Officer of MiDA, Eson Benjamin, Executive Director of Institute of Energy Security, Paa Kwesi Anamua and Director of Systems Control at GRIDCo Mark Baah.

Mr Amewu highlighted the achievements of the Energy Commission and also, commended both past and current Board Members, Executive Secretaries and staff of the Commission for their invaluable contributions towards the progress of the organisation.

He noted that through the efforts of the Commission, Parliament had passed about fifteen Legislative Instruments with six on electricity including the local content regulations, four on national gas, five on energy efficiency and two Acts of Parliament and various Code of Practice.

"It is important to note that, the said regulations have not been passed by Parliament just to add to the numbers but more importantly, the Commission is duly implementing them to the letter," he said.

On his part, the Executive Secretary of the Energy Commission, Dr Alfred Ofosu-Ahenkorah, who spoke about the achievements of the Commission for the past two years, revealed that the Commission would be developing new legislation for sockets, bulb holders, television sets, as well as standards for wood fuel.

He said as a result of the passage of the electrical wiring regulations, fire outbreaks, which used to be rampant in the country, had been reduced to the barest minimum.

He said his outfit is collaborating with the Ghana National Fire Service and they would soon put out statistics about how the country experienced fire outbreaks associated with poor electrical wiring, and what the current situation is in the country.

"While the country is growing and the economy is growing the energy intensity of the economy is flat or is going down. This shows that Ghana is using energy more efficiently than our sister countries. It is an achievement that Ghana has chalked, which is the envy of even the developed country," Dr Ofosu -Ahenkorah indicated.