The World Bank has advised Ghana to come up with an emergency action plan and ensure its immediate implementation to address the challenges facing the energy sector.
Ms Anna Bjerde, the World Bank Managing Director of Operations, said any delays in the implementation of such action plan amid the current crisis could derail economic growth.
Speaking at a media briefing Friday evening to end her first working visit to Ghana since her appointment in April, she said the Bank was ready to assist the country with technical and related support to tackle the energy sector challenges.
She said should the challenges persist: “The generators would not be able to keep producing electricity and you’d end up with interruption in supply; economic growth would be impacted, not to mention the impact of the welfare on the Ghanaian population, whether it is in schools, or health centres or homes.”
Ms Bjerde noted that most of Ghana’s cost in the energy sector was on the generation side, therefore, there was the need for money to flow from the collection to the time of generation of electricity.
“Ghana has both financial and network losses, and if not addressed with an emergency action plan, that could cost the State more to keep the energy sector running at a time that they need to spend money on other things,” she said.
Ms Bjerde recommended that attention be paid to addressing the challenges in the metering, billing and collection systems to recoup the needed revenue, adding that, “if there’re customers that refuse to pay, you might also have to disconnect them”.
“The World Bank is providing technical advise on what needs to be done; the metering, billing and collection, and making sure that you have an account set up from, which all the revenue flows go,” Ms Bjerde.
She said that the Bank was also advising Ghana to balance electricity tariff increases, with protection of the vulnerable, and adoption of best global practices, including regulation, and Private-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
The World Bank MD of Operations called for increased collaboration among the Finance, Energy, and Gender, Children and Social Protection Ministries to have a comprehensive package for the emergency energy action plan.
“We have a lot of experiences from around the world that we can bring to bear, but most important right now, is to implement over the next few months, these emergency measures,” she said.
For his part, the Country Director, Pierre Frank Laporte, urged the government to leverage the Bank’s West African Power Pool (WAAP) to solve the generational challenges in the energy sector.
The Bank’s WAAP allowed countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to ‘pool’ their power systems for better use and sharing of available cheaper, greener energy resources in the neighbourhoods.
Mr Laporte also encouraged the government to implement robust plans and invest in renewable energy supply to produce cheap and clean energy.
GNA