Power challenges forces policy shift towards transparency

Ghana’s Energy Ministry is instituting regular briefings on the country’s energy situation to update the citizens after power cuts become so embarrassing they got a name for it.

Dumsor is a popular Ghanaian tern used to describe persistent, irregular and unpredictable electric power outages in the country.

The country experienced 159 days of blackouts in 2016, the country had to resort to public load-shedding schedule, hence, electrical grid often leaves one side of the street in darkness while those on the opposite side have light.

According to the country’s energy minister, these briefings will outline the challenges confronting the power sector and will also state specific actions aimed at resolving it including timelines for expected solutions.

The Energy ministry says these briefings will help it to plan, understand what the issues are enthrone transparency in the sector to achieve support from Ghanaians.

At the announcement of the new measure, the ministry told the nation that a successful tie-in operation coupled with the procurement of fuel and increased power supply from Cote d’Ivoire, among other measures, would stabilise the power situation.

Babatunde Fashola, Nigeria’s minster of Power, Works and Housing since his appointment to saddle one of Nigeria’s most critical sector have held regular meetings with electricity operators in the country.

The meetings focuses on critical issues with the sector and stakeholders have a frank dialogue on the challenges facing them and the media is given access to report on issues.

Present at the meeting were the managing directors and chief executive officers of generating companies (GENCOs), DISCOs, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) as well as various government agencies, such as the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader (NBET), Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), and the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA).

Also senior executives of some oil and gas industry were present including the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Gas Aggregating Company of Nigeria (GACN), and the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) with the aim of intensifying efforts to resolve bottlenecks associated with gas supply to the power sector.

At the February edition of the monthly meeting of operators in the power sector in Lagos, metering was the core issue for deliberation and the minister exacted commitment from electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) to improve metering for customers.

The Natural Resource Governance Institute, NRGI, a transparency watchdog in the energy sector says transparency is a topical issue in the sector because while treaties, laws and other legal documents defining the relationship between governments and private companies are public, contracts between governments and oil, gas and mining companies are often shrouded in secrecy.

Nevertheless, current move towards transparency while desirabe is inspired by crises in the sector and operators faced with draught of ideas to rescue the situation. Gas supply shortages in Ghana and maintenance work on some plants have caused power outages. In Nigeria, the problems range from liquidity gaps, gas constraints, poor regulation and lack of serious attention to diversifying energy sources.

In Ghana’s case, on the two occasions the citizens have been briefed on the power sector, the public got assurances and deadlines for the normalisation of the power situation.

Nigeria’s monthly meetings so far has resulted in the Federal government issuing directives to electricity operators to perform their responsibilities. It is not big on deadlines or actuation consequences for failure to carry out directives.

Power supply hovered between 3,000 and 4,000 last year in Nigeria last year. It remains to be seen how much success these engagements will yield. That everyone is kept updated of the problems is by no means a substitute to actual solution.

ISAAC ANYAOGU