President John Dramani Mahama has announced plans to revisit the privatisation of power distribution in Ghana, underscoring the need for greater efficiency in the country’s energy sector.
The President made these remarks during a meeting with a World Bank delegation at his private office in Cantonments, Accra.
Reflecting on his time as Vice President under the late Professor John Evans Atta Mills, President Mahama recalled the launch of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) project. The initiative was designed to position Ghana as Africa’s most efficient electricity producer and a hub for energy exports.
Mahama also reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to addressing the inefficiencies within the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), which he identified as a crucial weak point in the country’s power value chain.
“I was vice president and the then president, Professor Atta Mills, initiated the Millennium Corporation Compact (MCC), which was meant to improve and make Ghana the most efficient producer of electricity in Africa and become a major hub for electricity export. Unfortunately, democracy has its dividends, but sometimes it can be a curse.
“We left government and a new one took over, also took over the Millennium Corporation Compact, messed up the last segment of it which was providing efficiency in the distribution, metering and all that and of course, the Power Distribution Service (PDS) is history now. But we want to take a look at that again because if we don’t fix the Electricity Company of Ghana, we will continue to have a major problem with our whole power value chain.
“So, going ahead with privatising the last point of distribution of electricity to bring in the private sector is something we want to take up again. We would like to speak with the World Bank to get the expertise for that,” he stated.
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