GRIDCO says it lost GHc280m to tariff reduction

The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO) has revealed it has lost some GHc280million of its annual revenue due to the recent tariff reduction by the Public Utilities Regulation Commission (PURC).

According to the CEO of the power transmitting entity, Jonathan Amoako-Baah, the GHc 280 million loss – which is about 17. 5% of annual revenue – brought a negative impact on the company’s operations.

Speaking during a media encounter as part of the company’s 10th-anniversary celebrations which are underway, Mr. Amoako-Baah said the tariff reduction hindered the company from fulfilling some of its operational mandates.

He said it affected the payment of compensations, the servicing of loans contracted from external development partners, as well as operating and maintenance costs.

“With this cut… we are not getting the funds to fulfil these obligations. The cut is a significant issue that brought a big impact on our operations,” he said.

“What we think should be done is that at least if the PURC was not increasing our tariff, they should not cut it. Once they cut it, what we need is to bring us to parity; to where we were before. At least, when they bring us back, we will be able to do our work more efficiently; at least we would have our GHc 280 million we lose annually restored to us,” he said.

Another challenge the company faces is the ECG’s indebtedness to it – to the tune of GHc 900 million.

He said ECG takes about 70% of GRIDCO revenue, and if it’s not collected affects them negatively.

Touching on some of the technical challenges, he said fuel security, low hydro reservoirs at Akosombo, erratic gas supply from Nigeria, frequent interruptions in gas supply from Ghana Gas, Right of Way (RoW) and illegal mining activities are affecting operations.

GRIDCO is working with the government of Ghana (GOG) and other stakeholders to resolve regulatory, financial and other technical challenges being faced in the sector while exploring the provision of consultancy services to utilities in the sub-region and beyond.

Frank Okyere, Manager of System Control Centre – who took the media through the national power generation portfolio and the operations at the central system unit, said the country currently has 4,741MW of installed capacity of electricity while demand is about 2,200MW, resulting in a reserve capacity of over 2000MW.