IES warns of unstable power supply if government doesn’t fund electricity providers

Institute of Energy Security is predicting unstable power supply across the country in the coming days if the government does not resource electricity service providers.

President Nana Akufo-Addo disclosed that the government will fully cover the bills of low-income consumers of electricity in the country for April, May and June 2020.

The remaining consumers who fall outside of this category will enjoy a 50 percent reduction in the cost of electricity for the same period.

This, the Research and Policy Analyst at the Institute, Raymond Nuworkpor in a Citi News interview said the already existing challenges in the sector may be compounded if funds are not provided urgently to support the rollout of government’s intervention.

“For this policy to come to effect, the government must first make available resource funding to the three entities in the supply chain so that they will be to give us consistent power, but unfortunately, we don’t know whether funds have been made available to them and that’s the problem now because even before the president made the announcement, we understood that, the IPP’s and the rest were unable to get gas supply from Nigeria because of liquidity challenges and Jubilee [field] too is unable to produce enough gas to power our thermal plants so if the government doesn’t make funds available to these entities, it will be difficult.”

The entities in the supply chain are the Ghana Grid Company, the Northern Electricity Distribution Company and the Electricity Company of Ghana.

Background

Government has decided to fully cover the bills of low-income consumers of electricity in the country for April, May and June 2020.

The remaining consumers who fall outside of this category will enjoy a 50 percent reduction in the cost of electricity for the same period.

“We have decided further measure of mitigation for Ghanaians for the next three months… The government will fully absorb electricity bills for the poorest of the poor, i.e: lifeline consumers. This will cover persons who consume 0 to 50-kilowatt hours per month for this period. This forms part of relief interventions by the state amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Other categories of consumers will enjoy a 50 percent discount within the same period. For all other consumers, residential and commercial, the government will absorb 50 percent of your electricity bill for this period using your March 2020 bill as the benchmark,” President Akufo-Addo disclosed.

 

 

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