Give Customers What They Want

---Former VRA Boss Advises
By Liberty Amewode
A former Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority (VRA), Mr. Louis Casely-Hayford, has called on his former organization to provide quality service to its customers, saying that is exactly what they (the customers) wanted.
He said for the VRA to improve upon its current performance, it had to make the final consumer its top priority.
According to him, with the present near-monopoly being enjoyed by the authority, the tendency to overlook this aspect of its functions is high, adding that it must take some difficult decisions if it is to improve on its delivery.
Mr. Casely-Hayford, was contributing to a panel discussion on “Challenges To Attainment Of Public Sector Excellence” at the Chief Executive’s Forum of the VRA in Accra last Monday.
The event formed part of activities marking the 50th Anniversary celebration of the authority and was attended by dignitaries and stakeholders in the energy sector.
The former CEO identified one major challenge to excellent public sector performance to be the inability of professionals to speak their mind on issues affecting the organization, saying many of them indulged in what he termed the ‘Stand and Stare’ (SS) syndrome.
Explaining what he meant by SS, he said most professionals simply ignore pointing out to their bosses bluntly when a particular decision was going to hurt the corporation, apparently because of fear of losing their job, and urged workers in the public sector to be bold and courageous in carrying out their duties.
He was of the view that the anticipated competition from Independent Power Producers (IPP) may take a longer time to arrive eventually, and urged the VRA not to lose focus.
Another former CEO of the VRA, Dr. Charles Yves Wereko-Brobby, in his contribution, said the authority would face competition only when universal access to electricity is achieved, adding that for now, the VRA is enjoying virtual monopoly.
He observed that most IPPs that attempted to operate in the system rather chose to go into a Power Purchase Agreement with the VRA and Electricity Company of Ghana, instead of the end user of the product, saying that was not supposed to be the case.
He singled out political interference to be the main bane of excellent public sector performance and called for courage in speaking the truth.
Dr. Wereko-Brobby opined that there were too many companies serving as intermediates between power generators and consumers, saying it was prudent to have a single power producer who will ensure production, transmission and distribution of electricity.
He called for proper and efficient metering system and the charging of realistic tariffs in order to recover cost.


Despite Encountering Huge Losses Within Last Decade
VRA POISED TO STAY AHEAD IN EXCELLENCE
By Liberty Amewode
Healthy profits raked in by the Volta River Authority (VRA) in the 1990s turned into huge losses with the commencement of thermal operations in the last decade and, but for the government’s support, the authority’s finances would have been worse due to the high cost of providing light crude oil needed to run the facilities.
The losses, including government support, have exceeded $1.6 billion between 1997 and 2010.
However, the authority made close to $300 million profit in 2010, a standard the VRA intends to sustain and even improve upon.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the country’s sole power generator, over the past five decades, Mr. Kweku Awotwi, the authority is poised to turn its fortunes around with investments in wind and solar energy to serve its teeming customers both in Ghana and beyond.
The CEO was delivering a lecture on “Setting The Standard For Public Sector Excellence” at the Chief Executive’s Forum in Accra on Monday as part of activities marking the authority’s Golden Jubilee celebrations.
He said the VRA’s production had grown from 1,503GWh to 10,273GWh within a 43-year period (1967-2010) representing an average five per cent growth.
Giving a regional perspective to the authority’s operations, Mr. Awotwi said electricity access in the sub-region was one of the lowest in the world, with total electric power installed capacity in the whole of the 15 countries within West Africa being about 11,500 megawatts.
He said Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire produce and consume over 85 per cent of the region’s electrical energy, adding that currently, there is limited power exchanges between the countries in the sub-region.
He indicated that on the whole, the sub-region does not have cost reflective tariffs.
Touching on challenges for the future, that is the next 50 years, Mr. Awotwi referred to current power sector reforms underway, saying that the initiatives rely on the successful design of the market and the rules of operation.
He mentioned incentives for capacity additions, pricing, equity, fairness and transparency as factors that will be crucial in determining the success of the reforms.
The role and reach of the regulator, he indicated, should also be factored in the equation, taking note of the interconnected roles of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) and the Energy Commission.
On competition from Independent Power Producers (IPPs), the CEO asked whether this would bring electricity access to the people the same way as had taken place in the country’s telephone industry.
He said when competition was introduced in 1996, the number of telephone lines increased from 300,000 then to more than 17 million currently and wondered if the same could apply to electricity.
With the promise of natural gas from the Jubilee Field, the authority is expected to improve on its core mandate of generating and supplying power to the country and beyond.
The VRA was established on April 26, 1961, by Act 46 of the Republic of Ghana, to generate and supply electrical power for domestic, commercial and industrial use for Ghana’s development.
The Authority’s additional mandate is to control dam flooding and navigation, assist in lakeside development and transportation, and execute local government functions in the Akosombo Township and lakeside area.
The VRA exists to power economies and raise the living standards of the peoples of Ghana and West Africa, supplying reliable electricity in a safe manner to add economic, financial and social values to its operations, to satisfy customers and meet stakeholders’ expectation.


LET’S HAVE A MORE ARTICULATED VISION FOR VRA
---Says Prof. Brew-Hammond
By Liberty Amewode
The vision of the Volta River Authority (VRA) should be more articulated and shared with every Ghanaian, particularly with stakeholders in the energy sector, the chairman of the Energy Commission, Professor Abeeku Brew-Hammond has said.
According to him, the VRA is indisputably the best performing public institution in the country, with its stream of highly competent professionals who are recognized worldwide.
He was however quick to caution against complacency, saying that the company must improve on its services and provide excellent service delivery.
Prof Brew-Hammond gave the advice in his closing remarks as chairman of the Chief Executive’s Forum a platform that was created for current and former VRA chief executives, as part of activities marking the authority’s 50th anniversary celebrations last Monday in Accra.
He said the power sector reform currently underway provided a great opportunity for the VRA to assess its performance over the last 50 years, in order to improve upon its current operations.
He called for the strengthening of public institutions, especially the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to empower it to deliver on its mandate and determining tariffs.
A former Chief Executive of the VRA, Mr. E.K Kalitsi, who was among the distinguished panelists, including three other former CEOs of the Authority, said the authority needed to take measures to retain manpower and not to lose them to their other companies, particularly those operating in the oil and gas sector.
He urged employees in the public institutions to be loyal and perform to their maximum best.
Earlier in an address, the CEO of the VRA, Mr. Kweku Awotwi, stressed the need for the authority to diversify its current portfolio into other renewables such as Wind, solar, and bioenergy/fuels.
He said there was the need for a comprehensive process of re-engineering in terms of costs, efficiency and productivity, together with the need to commercialize all non-power areas to become standalone self-sustaining entities in the face of competition.
“Competition, by itself, is not enough to assure the health of Ghana’s electricity sector or the successful provision of electricity to the people”, he said, adding that what was needed is strong, independent and transparent institutions coupled with well designed market rules and regulations as well as careful balance of strategic imperatives with economic fundamentals.
He indicated that the continued reliance on crude oil at current world prices, the cost of supplying electricity to the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) and the need to provide electricity to all the people at a cost they can afford, questions the VRA’s ability to remain healthy and profitable.



Crucial Time For World Bank, Africa Relationship

2005 AFRICA ACTION PLAN REVISED

A new strategy outlining how the World Bank plans to approach its partnership with Africa in the next five years will be released in March, the bank has announced.
The policy will aim at deepening the relationship between the two entities while revising previous strategies to improve ties between them in the five years to 2016.

The strategy known as “Africa's future and World Bank support to it” has been informed by consultations, input and feedback provided by more than two thousand Africans and others who participated in an eight-month-long series of face-to-face and on-line consultations.

From June to December 2010, the Bank invited stakeholders—government officials, development experts, legislators, policy makers, diasporans, representatives of civil society, the private sector, the media, and academia-- to participate in the revision of the strategy which the Bank has been using since 2005, known as the Africa Action Plan, to foster development on the continent.

Input was provided by close to a thousand stakeholders gathered in face-to-face meetings and workshops in 36 countries, 31 of them in Africa. In addition, comments and suggestions provided by more than 540 on-line participants during the first phase of consultations in June-September 2010 informed the initial draft of the strategy.

During the first phase, stakeholders raised a series of issues related to their countries, their sub-regions and the continent. Concerns ranged from promoting the private sector as a driver of growth, to the capacity of governments to manage resources, to the role of sub-regional economic organizations in delivering regional solutions.

Following the release of the draft strategy in November 2010, the second phase of consultations enabled the Bank to calibrate whether the inputs from the first round had been incorporated, as well as to receive and incorporate further comments to the document. A solid majority (76 percent) of the 880 respondents reported that the draft accurately captured the development challenges facing Africa.

“We would like to thank everyone who participated in this process,” said Shanta Devarajan, World Bank Chief Economist for the Africa Region and the lead author of the strategy. “The comments we received proved what we have known for some time--that Africans are best placed to determine their development needs and the interventions necessary to foster economic growth and poverty reduction in their countries.”

Based on the feedback from the consultations, the World Bank's engagement in support of Africa's development will henceforth be organized along the two pillars identified in the draft strategy: (i) competitiveness and employment; and (ii) vulnerability and resilience.

The foundation of work done along these two cross-cutting themes is governance and public sector capacity. The pillars and foundation recognize the current challenges, priorities and opportunities, including the onset of rapid economic growth and the potential for Africa to become a global growth pole.
They also take into account the internal reforms within the World Bank. The most important reforms deepen country ownership of the design and implementation of development programs; boost access to data, information and development knowledge, including South-South learning; and strengthen the empowerment of an increasingly decentralized World Bank staff, including experts and managers based in the continent.
“The main instrument for implementing the strategy will be partnerships,” said Obiageli Ezekwesili, World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region. “We need to leverage the private sector, development actors and most importantly, African society in designing development solutions going forward, and to ensure that our knowledge and financial resources are much more productive and effective.”
Some of the many suggestions made by participants during the consultations included encouragement by stakeholders for the World Bank to:
Acknowledge China’s long-standing role in trade with the continent and with Africa’s development and encourage and build stronger Asia-Africa partnerships, keeping in mind that interest in the continent as a destination for business will increase in the years ahead;
Deepen the involvement of non-State actors like civil society organizations in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development interventions;
Ensure that a greater emphasis be put on agriculture, given its enormous potential to boost the incomes of the poor, improve food security, curb poverty and generate opportunities for agribusinesses; and
Consider the best ways of integrating the informal sector, a key driver of employment, especially among youth and women in Africa, into the strategy’s competitiveness and employment pillar.
Based on the wealth of input and feedback and on internal discussions within the institution, the World Bank’s Africa Region is now finalizing the strategy, which is scheduled for presentation to its Board of Directors in early March 2011.
Once endorsed, “Africa's future and World Bank support to it” will be published and implemented beginning in the new fiscal year starting July 1, 2011. Ahead of the Board review, Ezekwesili and Devarajan will present an overview of the consultations process and its findings at a date to be announced soon.
The World Bank Group has operations in 47 Sub-Saharan African countries where its funding is mainly provided through the International Development Association (IDA)—the Bank's fund for the world's 79 poorest countries, 39 of them in Africa—and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank's private sector arm. In 2010, the World Bank Group committed a record US$11.5 billion in loans, near-zero-interest credits, grants, equity investments, and guarantees to Africa.