The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have enhanced collaborations to ensure affordable tariffs within the electricity sector.
The states through the ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority is expected to adopt a policy document that will streamline the technical, financial, and legal frameworks towards achieving this purpose.
At the commencement of a two-day conference to adopt the agenda in Accra on Monday, chairman of the Consultative Committee of the Authority, Kokou Tossou revealed that the document is integral to increasing cross-border electricity trade.
“It (the document) will guide all the necessary technical and financial and also legal framework to be part of the electricity market. For example, if you want to be connected to the grid you should be aware about all the contents of this document, and it is also the same if you are for example an IPP and you want to buy and sell electricity in the region.”
“It is a very important and critical document to establish and all the routes, functioning for the electricity market,” he stated.
Meanwhile the Executive Secretary of the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), Dr Ishmael Ackah rejected claims that the electricity sector is overly regulated in Ghana.
He said all bodies including the added layer of the sub regional regulatory body were to ensure that the needs of the various players in the sector were met.
“I don’t think that there is over regulation. I think when you come to the sector, we are looking at three things- we have consumers on one hand, we have the producers, there is also the need to introduce private capital into the sector since government cannot do it all. Power generation also has what we call externalities.
“So, there may be environmental concerns and other things. Due to all these three things, there should be a regulator that sits between utilities, the customer that gives confidence to investors that when you invest your money you will get your returns and that is able to deal with the issues of externalities…So there is no over regulation,” he stated.
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