The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has entreated stakeholders to explain the details of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) concession arrangement and what it means for all institutions in the power sector.
PURC Director of Public Affairs Nana Yaa Jantuah indicated: “We all need an interpretation of Article 7.1 [of the MiDA Compact II]… We also need to find out the spirit behind 7.1… It is not clear to everybody.”
The Article 7.1 she was talking about is the Section 7.1 of the Millennium Challenge Compact between the United States of America acting through the Millennium Challenge Corporation and Ghana.
It states: “The Government will proceed in a timely manner to complete all of its domestic requirements for this Compact to enter into force. The Parties understand that this Compact and the PIA, upon entry into force, will prevail over the domestic laws of Ghana.”
The Compact concerns the takeover of the management of the ECG by a private firm for about 25 years and the role of PURC as a regulatory authority has come under question.
A civil society group, Wacam, holds the opinion that should the deal go through, PURC will become redundant as power tariffs will be determined by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
But the PURC PRO explained that whichever company would emerge out of the arrangement would only be involved with power distribution and not play the same role as regulator.
“The PURC is the regulator and as far as we are concerned, there is nowhere in the Compact which explicitly states that PURC is not going to regulate distribution,” she further told Joy FM on Thursday September 15, 2016.
“Does the Compact override the Constitution which is the supreme law of Ghana, which is a sovereign state? We also do not know whether it is a treaty or a commercial arrangement. So we need to have all these clarified to know what the arrangement means to every institution in the sector.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
