The World Bank (WB), in its 2013 report entitled, “Energising economic growth in Ghana: Making the power and petroleum sectors rise to the challenge”, stated the obvious bottlenecks in the generation and distribution of power to consumers.
However, the fact that all the institutions in the power sector are under-performing requires certain urgent action from the government.
The Volta River Authority (VRA), the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) all face operational challenges, not to talk about the regulator, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), which some consumers think has not been clothed with enough mandate to get the utility companies to provide efficient services for the people.
The WB also cited the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) as a non-viable entity and called on the government to shut it down.
The PURC dismissed the WB’s position on its performance, saying, “The World Bank cannot be suggesting to Ghanaians that the utilities should continue to ignore the benchmarks set in Ghana with impunity and without any consequences whatsoever.”
The Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, also disagrees with the WB’s position on VALCO, saying, “VALCO is a strategic, national industrial asset which must be maintained at all cost.”
Certainly, all the utility companies are strategic national assets that must be supported to operate at optimum level to facilitate economic activities.
The government and consumers of power have reneged on their responsibilities, making it difficult for the companies to deliver value to society.
The government owes the ECG and the VRA millions of dollars in unpaid bills and statutory support, while some consumers have refused to pay their bills.
It is outrageous that about 25 per cent of power generated is lost through illegal connections, done, in most cases, with the active connivance of ECG officials.
It sounds ridiculous, but it is a fact that even some ECG officials condone with consumers to tamper with prepaid meters, so that those consumers can enjoy power for free.
The challenges of our times are systemic. The system is so rotten that unscrupulous people are able to take advantage of the loopholes to cheat law-abiding citizens.
The government has, on many occasions, come up with some drastic measures to deal with the challenges but, unfortunately, the measures turn out to be nine- day wonder, largely because the people tasked with the responsibility to enforce the regulations are also culprits,
They start their operations with a lot of zeal, but with the typical Ghanaian belief that “ehuru a ebe dwo”, these officials join hands with the criminals to undermine the policies.
We tend to grope in the dark in finding solutions to our woes, with little to show for the efforts because majority of the people who shout “Wolf! Wolf!” in order to draw attention to the danger around are themselves the cancerous elements that are undermining the efforts of the government to fix the challenges.
Very often you hear some government officials blaming the government for starving state institutions of the funds to keep those institutions running, but when these funds are provided, the institutions are unable to use them for the intended purposes and the companies eventually run aground.
The Daily Graphic thinks the time has come for the government to hold all government officials responsible for the efficient running of institutions under their care.
All state officials must be made to sign performance bonds which will tie their continuous stay in office to the efficient performance or profitability of the institutions they head.
Those who are unable to meet their targets must be shown the exit.
We also call on the government to take urgent action to fix the challenge in the energy sector, so that the utility companies can deliver efficient services to run the economy and attract investors.
Daily Graphic/Ghana
