The Vice President speaking at the event
Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur says electricity tariffs in Africa are high.
Mr. Amissah-Arthur made the disclosure on Tuesday while delivering the keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Association of Power Utilities of Africa (APUA) held at the Mövenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra.
The meeting, under the theme: ‘Energy Development through Customer Management, Revenue Collection and Energy Efficiency,” brought together the continent’s power utility operators to exchange ideas to improve the energy sector across Africa.
The Vice President warned that if tariffs continue to increase, power will be affordable only for the rich, a situation that would significantly restrict development on the continent.
“In many of our countries, there are large segments of the population that cannot afford to pay economic tariff. Their circumstances have to be factored into the tariff regime,” he said.
He added that if the circumstances were not considered “power will be a service available only for the wealthy and not for the poor or rural resident which will definitely restrain the development of our societies,” he said.
“There are five important aspects to be addressed. The first is the planning approach in developing energy sources. This must be comprehensive, embracing thermal, hydro and renewables. We must avoid the adoption of the haphazard, piecemeal approach,” he declared.
Slow Growth
According to the Vice President, in most of Africa, energy development has not matched increasing demand.
“I am told that in the last decade, power consumption in Africa increased by three times the rate of capacity growth,” he said.
He pointed out that there was an increasing energy gap, whose implication impacts not just economic growth, but also progress in the social sectors such as education, health, tourism among others.”
Suggestions
Efficient energy use, he said, must reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services, adding that “in this respect, demand side management is crucial and we must educate and encourage the use of energy-saving building architecture and industrial, commercial and domestic devices.”
He stated that an ambitious objective of developing an effective, efficient and sustainable power sector can be facilitated through the exchange of knowledge, experiences and the pooling of resources in APUA.
National Outlook
Ghana, he said, has worked to diminish the energy gap, especially in rural communities.
He also touched on some of the successes that the country has chalked over the years.
On the African continent, excluding island nations, Ghana is behind only Gabon and South Africa in terms of energy access, the Vice President said.
According to him, about 80.5 percent of Ghanaians currently have access to electricity.
By 2020, he said, there should be a universal access to electricity in Ghana, calling on other African nations to expand their electricity reach.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Volta River Authority (VRA), Ign. Kirk Koffie, in a remark, explained that APUA over the last 50 years has promoted the development and integration of the African power systems through network interconnections, exchange of experiences and knowledge, as well as the pooling of energy in a win-win approach for all.
He said the power sector in Africa was faced with challenges such as low accessibility and insufficient capacity, poor reliability and high tariffs.
BY Melvin Tarlue & Derek Maiolo