The Minister of Energy-designate, John Jinapor, has allayed fears of possible privatisation of the Volta River Authority (VRA) and the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo).

He explained that the two entities required a merger to promote efficiency instead of being placed in private hands and assured the workers that the government intended to implement policies that bring about efficiency.

Mr. Jinapor gave this assurance at his vetting by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Monday in Accra.

The two entities, he explained, had experts manning various fields, including hydro and renewables. “What is left now is bringing their expertise to bear on the ministry’s mandates to reduce losses and increase efficiency.”

On the main challenge of power generation, Mr. Jinapor called for private sector participation in the operations of the ECG in the areas of metering and billing.

“My target is to push for six months to rally all stakeholders to confront the situation when given the nod. I do not want to stampede the committee.”

The ECG, he indicated, was indebted to about GH¢45 billion, which calls for the installation of smart meters that meet usage indicators. He added that the ECG had about 5.2 million meters in circulation, with 4.8 million active and about three million of them not working properly, meaning a minimum of 2.9 million needed to be changed.

“So we’re exploring the possibility of selling the meters using smart technology to license some people to install the meters. You will need to send a code; once you send the code, mobile money is activated, and automatically you are registered onto the system,” he added.

The Bank of Ghana, the Minister-designate explained, would have to work very hard to “anchor the currency because ECG alone had a foreign loss of $1.5 billion, which somebody has to pay for…that is why we have to ensure that we anchor the currency.”

On the country’s nuclear programme, he said two sites had been identified, and that China and the USA had identified two technologies. The bigger the nuclear plant, it can give you about 1,200 to 1,400 megawatts.



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