The Senior Vice President and policy analyst for IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Mr. Kofi Bentil has intimated that the failure of the PDS deal should not be the end of efforts to privatize the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

Speaking on access to affordable energy, Mr. Bentil indicated that, government has not showed interest in the dealing with the issue after the termination.

“We have the ECG situation, the failure of PDS should not be the end of the concept of ECG privatization. So, what is happening after the botched PDS? And then again, the records will show that government has not showed sufficient commitment in dealing with this issue.

“We had $500 million which we lost, and PDS was a mess. And we all know what is going on in terms of that. You can’t talk about affordable energy and leave out ECG; it’s not possible.”
Kofi Bentil

blogger image 1539541908 — Failure ECG workers on site

Mr. Bentil was of the view that when talking about energy in terms of affordability, there is the need to appreciate what the other option for affordability is.

“In energy economics, energy availability is always important that affordability and energy reliability is always more important that affordability. So, it’s not just the affordability because it does not make reference to someone who doesn’t have availability whether they are rich or poor.”
Kofi Bentil

Ghana can convert to a gas revenue economy

Speaking on gas as a form of affordable energy, he averred that with gas, it is possible and desirable for Ghana to convert its economy to a gas revenue economy because we do have gas.

“There is no way you can discuss energy affordability in this economy without dealing with gas. If we don’t deal with these issues around gas, we would not be aiming for affordability.”
Kofi Bentil

He stated that a mess has been made with gas and unfortunately, there is no clear way in terms of dealing with that mess. Mr. Bentil also posited that government has not shown significant commitment nor competence in dealing with those issues.

“Not just that, but a number of other issues. And the record will show, because what has happened to the renegotiation of the ENI gas and what we are doing in terms of our gas economy, the West African gas pipeline, what is going on?”
Kofi Bentil

We should stop making excuses

With regards to the Rural Electrification Scheme which has not reached the full population, Mr. Bentil attributed this to leadership and asked that authorities stop making excuses.

“For the land size of Ghana, if anyone tells me that they cannot string wires from the north to the south, and do it in such a way that we talk through 25% or so, it will never make sense to me. As far as I am concerned, we should stop making excuses.

“How do we do it? You simply do it with leadership. Someone must draw a line somewhere. You’re stringing power from the south to the north or from the North to the south in a small country and we have excuses upon excuses.”
Kofi Bentil

Touching on the Cylinder Recirculation Module (CRM), he indicated that the CRM roll out has not been functioning properly and questioned why it was so. He then urged for auto gas to also be considered as a solution to affordable energy.