Dr. Ishmael Ackah, Executive Director PURC
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), has been ranked fourth in the 2022 Electricity Regulatory Index (ERI) for Africa.
This was made known when the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank (WB) on the Global Electricity Regulatory Index (GERI), launched the ERI report virtually on Thursday, December 8, 2022.
Forty-three (43) countries in Africa with forty-four regulatory institutions, participated in the assessment process, which was based on well-developed electricity regulatory frameworks, the capacity to exercise the necessary regulatory oversight and authority on the regulated entities, and the ability to achieve measurable outcomes. These frameworks were categorised into three pillars: Regulatory Governance Index (RGI), which assesses the extent to which the laws, procedures, standards, and policies governing the electricity sector provide for a transparent, predictable, and credible regulatory framework, which meets international standards; Regulatory Substance Index (RSI), which evaluates how well electricity sector regulators are carrying out their mandate and implementing the practices and processes that affect regulatory outcomes; and the Regulatory Outcome Index (ROI), which measures the perspectives of distribution utility companies and/or consumers, and the degree to which the regulator has a positive or negative impact on the sector.
The PURC ranked fourth among the forty-four African regulatory institutions sampled, only after Uganda, Egypt and Senegal. This was achieved based on the significant progress made by the commission in the operations of its functions as per the legal mandate, clarity of roles of independence, accountability, transparency, predictability, participation, and open access to information for various stakeholders.
For the year under review (2022) and in the interest of deepening its transparency, the commission was able to among others, undertake consumer service clinics, which enabled the commission to bring its complaints resolution processes closer to consumers; published the reckoner (electricity and water), which enables consumers to compute their own tariffs based on consumption levels; redesigned the commission’s website to accommodate new developments, such as hosting the public utilities regulatory information system (PURIS); as well as constituting regulatory audit teams to undertake verification exercises, based on submitted investment needs of the utilities.
The African Development Bank, since 2018, has embarked on carrying out surveys on the level of development of Regulatory Frameworks in the electricity sector in Africa. The Director for Energy Financial Solutions, Policy and Regulation at the African Development Bank noted that, “…the ERI has been influential not only in Africa but also the rest of the world.”
The World Bank, on its part, has also assessed the regulatory frameworks within the sector, including the report on Rethinking Power Sector Reforms in the Developing World.
According to the Executive Secretary of the PURC, Dr. Ishmael Ackah, being ranked fourth this year is an improvement on the commission’s seventh position in the previous year.