By:
Fred Yaw Sarpong
Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, an Executive Director at Africa
Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) has commended the government for developing a
five year plan to settle the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) GHc728 million
debt owed by the State-Owned-Enterprises (SOEs) in the country.
“It’s very important for the government to pay the debt so
that ECG will also settle the Volta River Authority (VRA) and Asogli for the power
they have produced for Ghanaians to consume,” he added.
Dr. Amin Adam said the plan is one of the conditions of
Ghana’s Compact under the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). “It’s one of the
conditions for the government to pay the debt of ECG before money will be
disbursed to Ghana. My problem is why should government wait for America to
come and tell us to pay the debt,”? he asked.
Secondly, he told the Daily Express that even though
government has develop plan to pay the debt, the issue is not about paying the
debt but whether government is not going to incur new debt.
“The only way government will avoid additional debt is to
find a way to pay the bills for the consumption of electricity by the
government agencies,” he pointed out.
“But if the agencies are going to have power from the ECG and
they will not pay for it then another debt will be accumulated and that
wouldn’t have solve the problem,” he told the Daily Express.
The energy expert said government should find mechanism to
pay for the power they consume in order not to accumulate new debt.
He emphasized that there are budgets on power allocated to
every Ministry as part of their expenditure. “The problem is that either the
monies are not release by the Finance Ministry or if the monies are given to
the Ministries they don’t use it for the power consumption but something else.”
He said “it’s the Ministries which have to make sure that
electricity consumption is one of the priorities on their expenditure list.”
The
Finance Minister, Mr. Seth Terkper announced at a press briefing that the
government has conducted an assessment of arrears between the government and
SOEs and cross-SOEs‟ arrears and prepared an action plan and a timeline for
their elimination
He
said this will include improving the repayment the “legacy debt” to ECG in the
amount of GHc728 million over five years Significant
According
to the Minister, this formed part of the SOE reforms being implemented. He said
the reforms are to strengthening monitoring and evaluation; Private sector
participation; and strengthening governance.
He
said the reforms include the introduction of performance management contracts
for senior managers which will include targets for reducing losses as well as a
framework facilitating monitoring of SOEs by the Office of the President, the
Ministry of Finance, the relevant committee of Parliament and sector Ministry
in order to strengthen operational and financial discipline.
Also,
there will be evaluation of potential for private sector participation in SOEs;
and conducted an assessment of SOE's governance and action plan for reforms
being prepared. “This will include strengthening of oversight of SOEs,” he
added.
Meanwhile,
Mr. Terkper said although a formal agreement has not yet been entered into, in
July 2016 lenders (domestic banks) have agreed a framework to the restructuring
and repayment of VRA debt of about GHc2.2 billion over 3 to 5 years Key
features of the agreement in principle:
He
mentioned upfront payment of approximately GHc250 million which will be funded
by the new collections from the energy sector levies; reduction of interest
rate on the GHC component of the VRA debt from an average of 30% to 22%; and
reduction of interest rate on the foreign currency component of the VRA debt from
an average of 11% to 8.50%.
Also
repayments will be funded from a debt service account which will receive
cashflows from (i) the energy debt recovery levy and a debt service reserve;
and (ii) a proportion of VRA's receivables; proceeds of the energy debt
recovery levy which are applied to VRA debts will be converted into equity on
VRA's balance sheet or could be subject to an on-lending arrangement with the
government; and government will place limits on the ability of VRA to incur new
indebtedness without express approval The government anticipates that this
approach will be used to restructure VRA's as well as the debt of other
energy-sector SOEs
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