- Says sector almost free from financial shackles
Every citizen will have access to electricity by end of 2024, President Nana Akuffo-Addo has assured.
With current coverage at 87 percent, President Akuffo-Addo – while delivering his State of the Nation address – said he is confident that every community and town across the country will be connected to the national electricity grid by end of his tenure, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, goal 7.
“We are on course to achieve our ambition of universal access to electricity by the end of my term as president of this country,” he said to lawmakers in Accra.
He said much of the progress has been realised under a National Electrification Scheme, where a total of 279 communities have been connected to the national grid – increasing coverage from 85 percent in 2020 to 87 percent as of January this year.
An additional 487 communities, according to President Akuffo-Addo, are at various stages of connection and completion under the scheme, which when accomplished will take the country closer to achieving 100 percent electricity coverage.
Taking stock of his administration’s management of the power sector, Mr. Akufo-Addo said: “We have kept to our promise and kept the lights on in spite of worldwide upheavals in the energy sector, and in spite of the huge legacy debts we inherited”.
He also painted a positive liquidity picture of the sector, saying his government has almost completed the process of restructuring debts to reduce their crippling effect on public expenditure.
For instance, in December 2020 the Finance Ministry announced that the Energy Sector Recovery Programme (ESRP) included the clearing of US$1billion in debt to independent power producers and deals made with power-generation companies that could save up to US$5billion.
In January last year the Minister of Energy, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, warned that energy sector debt – electricity and downstream petroleum – could rise more than four-fold to US$12.5billion by 2023 unless strategic steps are taken to curb it.
Meanwhile, to cut down the losses – especially along the transmission subsector – of about 5 percent, the president cited introduction of modern Bulk Supply Points (BSPs) in areas such as Kasoa and Pokuase, which he said has led to tremendous improvement in power transmission for the South-Western and North-Western parts of Greater Accra.
“Power lines are being upgraded to reduce commercial and technical losses and increase transmission capacity,” he added.
