‘Electricity for All’ by 2030 worrying - Fiifi Kwetey
Adnan Adams Mohammed
Former Deputy Finance and
Agriculture Minister under erstwhile John Mahama administration, Fifi Kwetey is
worried with the decision of the government to extend universal electricity
access to all Ghanaians from 2020 to 2030.
The government announced its plans
to provide universal access to electricity by 2030 as it intends to use solar
energy to bridge the 15 per cent gap in the provision of electricity across the
country. The Minister of Energy, Mr John Peter Amewu, announced this in Accra,
last week, in a speech, read on his behalf at a validation workshop on the
findings of off-grid solar market assessment in the country.
The government has indicated that,
rural and peri-urban Ghana were the targets for the electrification programme.
Already, Ghana had been selected among 19 African countries in West Africa and
the Sahel to benefit from a US$265-million facility to increase access to
electricity by rural folks. The project will kick-start simultaneously in
beneficiary countries from January 2020.
“We handed over to them a country
that has seen an increase in electricity coverage from 52 percent to 83 percent
and in just 4 years, they have been able to only increase electricity coverage
by 0.5 percent, not even 1 percent, whereas we [NDC] were on the cause of providing
universal coverage by the end of 2020”, the legislator registered his worry
during his presentation at a forum organized by the NDC on the 2020 budget.
“They have come into office today
and they had to push the universal electricity coverage to 2030 because they
are moving at such a slow pace and there’s no way they will be able to extend
electricity coverage like the way we [NDC] were doing,” he remarked.
The MP for Ketu South Constituency
again indicated that the John Mahama led government had left behind water
coverage that moved from a rate of 57 percent to 76 percent yet they [NPP]
claim the NDC left an economic mess.
Consequently, the assessment of
the off-grid solar market was conducted in the beneficiary countries to
identify the major supply and demand-side barriers to the establishment of a sustainable market which was to validate stakeholders from the public and private energy sector.
Monitoring and evaluation
expert, Mr Collins Osae, said the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy
Efficiency (ECREEE) had, since 2017, been pursuing an agenda of facilitating
the implementation of concrete on-the-ground projects, of which the Regional
OffGrid Electrification Project (ROGEP) was part.
ROGEP covers 15 ECOWAS-member
states and four other non-ECOWAS countries, including Cameroon, Chad, the
Central African Republic and Mauritania.
Its development objective was to
increase electricity access to households and businesses, using modern
stand-alone solar systems through a harmonised regional approach.
The financiers of the project are
the World Bank, the Clean Technology Fund and the Directorate General for
International Cooperation of the government of The Netherlands, which is
providing $265 million for the initiative.
The ECREEE is the technical
implementation partner, while the West African Development Bank is the
financial implementing partner.
According to promoters of the
project, the ECREEE Secretariat, on the basis of the market study, would build
the capacity of off-grid (stand-alone) solar businesses and also support an
awareness campaign to remove barriers and help create an ecosystem to develop a
regional market of solar products.
The ECREEE was established in 2010
in response to the energy poverty crisis faced by the West African sub-region
and the need to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The establishment of ECREEE was a
strategic decision by West African leaders, under the auspices of the ECOWAS
Commission, to strive to reduce the daunting energy deficit and promote
renewable energy and energy efficiency in the region.
The ECREEE has helped to develop
region-wide policies related to clean energy and energy efficiency, as well as
facilitate awareness, investment and business promotion, while assisting with
capacity-building of renewable energy and energy efficiency in the region.
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