With a few weeks before the president-elect, John Dramani Mahama ascends the presidency, expectations are beginning to rise as the Africa Center for Energy Policy is demanding that the new administration in waiting must undertake a complete overhaul of Ghana’s energy sector.
Executive Director of ACEP, Ben Boakye says Ghana’s energy sector is in a dire state stemming from political mismanagement and other factors.
Ben Boakye says the critical sector of the economy has become an avenue for some few officials to benefit while the larger population bears the brunt of the mismanagement.
In an opinion piece addressed to the President-elect, Mr. Boakye said the country’s energy sector loses over GH₵ 50 billion yearly, causing the ever-deterioration of the sector.
He further pointed out inefficiencies in the downstream petroleum sector, which burden the public with inflated costs to support political agendas.
“The energy sector has been systematically decimated, enriching a few while the public bears the burden through the budget, levies, and high margins,” Ben Boakye contended.
He further bemoaned that the sector is over-bloated with many structures and agencies leading to overstaffing and redundancy siphoning the sector’s budget.
Ben Boakye wrote: “The energy sector is riddled with agencies and companies that are 4-5 times larger than what was needed to perform the same work eight years ago.”
For the upstream oil and gas sector, the ACEP boss argued that the poor management, coupled with procurement irregularities and exchange rate instability has posed a significant risk to the sector leading to gas payments to investors increasingly becoming uncertain.
With these systemic challenges, Ben Boakye believes the sector requires a complete overhaul. He says President-elect Mahama, after he assumes the reins of government must conduct what he describes as a surgical examination to rid the sector of these political and systemic inefficiencies.
