If Ghana was serious in making the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) efficient in its operations there was no need to give a concession to Power Distribution Services (PDS) to assume the assets and operations of the ECG in the first place, this is according to a lecturer at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr. Richard Opoku.
According to the energy expert, the high technical and commercial loses that characterized ECG, which made Ghanaians believe that the company was deficient in managing the power sector was largely due to the use of energy inefficient appliances and non-adherence to good energy conservation practices by government institutions.
“I think that as a nation at a point in time people thought that ECG was not efficient in terms of managing Ghana’s power distribution sector because they had a lot of loses. For instance, the technical and commercial losses by ECG were about 24 to 25 percent including several debts and many of these were coursed by government institutions who were not paying electricity bills,” he said.
His concerns come at the back of a recent decision by the government to allow the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to temporarily assumed operations as Ghana’s power distribution company after Power Distribution Service’s (PDS) concession agreement was suspended few months after they took over from ECG in March 2019.
The Energy Commission announced its appointment of ECG on an interim basis last Tuesday after realizing that the agreement between Ghana and PDS had become “impaired.”
The commission noted in the statement that the demand guarantees submitted by PDS to ECG have been “disavowed.”
Speaking in an interview KNUST’s official radio station, Focus FM with Boakye Nyamekye Isaac, Dr. Richard Opoku noted that Ghana’s power distribution sector can be made efficient to reduce loses under ECG by investing in modern smart grid systems.
He noted that in-depth analysis would have to be done in terms of ensuring efficiency in the system if the government wants to privatize some part of ECG.
Speaking on whether or not the coming back of EC may lead to fluctuations in power supply, he indicated that if all sectors within the power distribution chain play their roles effectively, there should not be any incessant power cuts in the coming days.
‘’If all measures are put in place EC coming back to take over the power distribution should not affect we consumers in terms of powers that we’ll be receiving,” he said.
What do you think about this piece? Share your comment in the comment thread and share the story using the social media buttons above. You may reach the editor on 0249579664. Thank you.
