Ghana To Export Electricity To Neighbouring Countries While Rural Communities Stay in Darkness

Ghana will soon become a net exporter of electricity according to the Vice President, and said indirectly, most of the rural communities shall continue to live in darkness because they are poor.

Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday gave the assurance that government would put in all the necessary measures to make Ghana a net exporter of electricity to neighbouring countries, by improving on the generation, transmission and distribution systems that would ensure regular supply of the commodity to beneficiary countries.

Mahama gave this assurance when addressing "Power Summit 2011", a public consultation on the development of the Ghana Millennium Challenge Account Compact II in Accra, a programme to usher in the top-up and renewal of support to Ghana to undertake major socio-economic development projects only at vantage areas of the country. Ghana government would also improve on the regulatory system, by encouraging private sector to participate effectively in the management and distribution of electricity in the country.

He said under the new power sector reforms, government would encourage other interested companies to participate in the management and distribution of the commodity to avoid monopoly and provide healthy competition for better service because Ghana has the comparative advantage in the production of energy and would therefore take advantage of the current availability of oil and gas to generate more power to speed up growth in development.

Ghana government plans to develop an energy economy and become a net exporter of power by 2015 through increase in the current generation capacity from 2,000 megawatts to about 5,000 megawatts. This according to John Dramani, would enable government to achieve 80% access of electricity in the communities out of the current 72%.

It was also disclosed during their meeting, the targets of providing access of electricity to about 8,000 communities will cost the government 1.7 billion dollars. Currently, government has about 966 million dollars, including a 350 million dollar US Exim Guaranty loan. He explained, **despite the improvement in supply, there were still challenges in rural communities owing mostly to poverty, inadequate funding, high cost of renewable energy and limited capacity.**

I wonder why this same government who has been throwing millions of dollars here and there and at the same time making inputs of several millions of dollars from other countries including a 350 million dollars US Exim Guaranty loan, still dare to talk about challenges in the rural communities due to poverty. What is that sort of financial calculation? Is it "robbing Peter to pay Paul" mentality, whereby Ghana will be exporting electricity to it's neighbouring countries to make profit while his own people sleep in darkness because they have no money to pay light bills and the government can neither provide them with jobs nor put money in their pockets?

FRANCIS TAWIAH (Duisburg - Germany)