Gov’t needs $10billion to invest in energy sector within
the next 5 years
Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot
The Minister of Energy, Dr. Joe Oteng Adjei, has announced
that the government needs $10billion to invest in Ghana’s
energy sector within the next five next years.
Out of this amount, the coming oil and gas industry alone
would need over $5.5billion to finance its activities, while
the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO) needs capital investments of
about $500million to re-inforce and expand its transmission
systems within the same period.
Dr. Adjei gave the announcement at year’s maiden
“meet-the-press” in Accra, yesterday.
He added that the government would continue to inject
funding into the sector, when available, adding “a major
policy is to encourage the energy sector institutions to
raise a substantial portion of their capital investment
requirements on their own without recourse to government”.
The government therefore requested the energy sector
agencies, particularly, the Volta River Authority (VRA),
GRIDCO, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Tema Oil
Refinery (TOR), to raise funds from commercial loans and
other private sector financing arrangements.
Indeed, the Ghana Stock Exchange could be another source of
raising funds for these sector agencies, Dr. Adjei
suggested.
He disclosed that, currently ECG requires about $1billion up
to 2012 to continue to upgrade and expand the distribution
network to improve reliability of power supply as well as
increase access in both peri-urban and rural communities.
This investment programme would also cover technical loss
reduction and voltage improvement projects, revenue
improvement and rural access projects.
The Minister encouraged the ECG to improve its corporate
governance and financial management system in order to be
able to attract financing on its own merit.
Touching on renewable energy strategy, Dr. Adjei indicated
that the government, as part of meeting the objective of
security of supply of energy, intends to accelerate
increased renewable energy in the national energy supply
mix.
To provide the necessary legal basis for the rapid
development of renewable energy in the national mix, the
process of setting up a Renewable Energy Law would be speed
up.
Whilst, a combination of technical and regulatory
instruments would be enshrined in the law to compel utility
companies to procure a predetermined percentage of their
electricity supplies from the renewable energy sources, he
revealed.
At the same time, government has initiated a programme to
install Grid-connected PV solar systems in public
institutions such as the Ministries, Departments and
Agencies (MDAs) which seeks to accelerate the development of
systems in the country.
Dr. Adjei announced that more companies would be encouraged
to establish local production of Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs)
in Ghana to satisfy national demand as well as for export to
neighbouring countries.
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