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Business News of Tuesday, 30 March 2021

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Ghana’s energy sector keeps deteriorating – John Jinapor

John Abdulai Jinapor, Former Deputy Minister of Energy John Abdulai Jinapor, Former Deputy Minister of Energy

Former Deputy Minister of Energy, John Abdulai Jinapor, has blamed Ghana’s unstable energy sector on its failure to improve the system.

His comments come on the back of the Auditor-General’s report which showed that about GH¢230 million debt was owed the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo).

GRIDCO and other players within the energy sector have come under public pressure following frequent power outages some few weeks ago.

Speaking on PM Express, John Jinapor explained that “if you generate the power, you must fill it to the point of consumption so you must improve on the grid and make it more resilient.”

He added that GRIDCo has gradually failed to live up to its operational plan in 2008.

Mr Jinapor further explained that the company’s finances had deteriorated so much so that “all the ratios went into negative.”

“If you look at GRIDCo’s audited account, their revenues in 2016 was about 607 so let’s take it that it’s 700 million. In 2017, it increased to 715 million, 2018, it decreased to 500 million so there was a dip of about 280 million.

“In terms of their revenue requirement, if you discount this with inflation it means that the real rate in terms of what they are really losing is a huge amount.”

Two main areas of GRIDCo’s operations, according to him, are the technical and financial side “because the financial side is what gives them revenue to invest in the technical side”

GRIDCo had issued a statement explaining the cause of the power outage with assurance from its boss, stating works are underway to fix certain incidental problems in the power system.

But John Jinapor wondered why the power supplier was unable to inform the public of the issue to afford Ghanaians adequate preparation for the enrollment.

“Is it not simple, is it not rational that if GRIDCo is aware that it is going to undertake so-called upgrading or maintenance works and it knows that it will shut off a transformer, it informs customers or consumers,” he quizzed.”

“This is simple logic, this is not rocket science,” he added.