Committee On VRA Restructuring To Submit Report

Dr Kwabena Donkor, the Minister of Power, says a committee set up to advice the Ministry on the restructuring of the Volta River Authority (VRA) would submit its report by end of September, 2015. Dr Donkor said the restructuring process was necessary to respond quickly and proactively to the changing landscape of customer demand and satisfaction. The Minister, speaking at the opening ceremony of a two-day �2015 Powering Africa-Ghana Investment Summit� in Accra, said the Electricity Company of Ghana�s private sector participation was being structured with the assistance of the US Compact. The Summit was organised by Energy Net Limited in collaboration with the Ministry of Power. It provided platform for stakeholders in the industry to ensure that the private sector was provided with opportunities to engage the country�s public sector leaders to accelerate development in the power sector. The Power Minister noted that the Grid Company of Ghana was examining its internal processes aimed at improving performance while the Northern Electricity Distribution Company, which covers 64 per cent of the geographical space was also slated for customer focused reforms. He said there was the need to adopt innovative ways of project financing to make funds available for projects since traditional tools such as sovereign guarantees, government consent and support agreements were no longer available. He said over the past decades, developing countries that had made substantial progress achieved such heights as a result of deliberate efforts to develop their local industries and local enterprise. �The country is developing a local content and local participation policy to be backed by appropriate legislation to enhance indigenous participation in the power sector,� he added. Dr Donkor reiterated that the Ministry was encouraging both conventional and non-conventional forms of generation through new gas-fired plants, biomass fueled plants, solar and wind farms, tidal powered generation, and clean coal fuelled generation. He said the country in a short-term would bring in a number of generating assets including commissioning of the 220 megawatt (MW) Kpone thermal plant operated by VRA, commissioning the 110 MW steam component of the Takoradi Internal Company expansion and bringing in the 225MW karpower barge to address power supply challenges.