Gov’t devotes $10m to electricity expansion for SMEs

Government has promised to devote $10 million of the total amount to get under the Second Compact of the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) to expansion of electricity access to small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs).

Disclosing this to journalists on Thursday, July 31, Ben Dotsei Malor, the Head of Communications at the Presidency, said infrastructure upgrade, enhancement of social inclusiveness and overall improvement in electricity delivery will be the main focus of government in disbursing the funds.

Government is expected to get more than $500 million from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

That will be devoted to the power or energy sector, Mr Malor hinted. “More than $300 million from this amount will be dedicated to the modernization of utility operations in the Electricity Corporation of Ghana and NEDCO and also help tackle outages as well as the heavy technical and commercial losses that currently affect the distribution sector,” he added.

He announced that the $10million dedicated to the SMEs is under the ‘Access Project’ of the Compact.

Mr Malor mentioned these as taking centre-stage during discussions of the Economic Strategic Advisory Team on Thursday, July 31 at the Presidential Lodge in Peduase in the Eastern Region.

The discussions were chaired by President John Dramani Mahama.