Parliament approves additional financing for GEDAP

Parliament has approved additional $60 million financing agreement between the Government of Ghana and the international development association for the Ghana Energy Development And Access Project, [GEDAP].

The House also ratified an on-lending agreement between government and the electricity company of Ghana for the $60 million for the Ghana energy development and access project.

Presenting a joint report of the committees on finance and mines and energy on the agreements, the Chairman of the finance committee, James Avedzi said the project will focus on systematic recordings and monitoring of consumption by ECG’s largest users to protect revenues from sales to large and medium customers.

The project is planned to be implemented over a period of 24 months and is expected to scale up the ongoing activities under the first component through an improvement in revenue collection and enhancing the management and planning processes of the ECG.

Report

The sixty million dollar Ghana energy development and access project will involve the installation and relocation of advanced metering infrastructure at the premises of at least 80,000 customers with monthly consumption exceeding 600KWH, establishing metering control centres, incorporating a meter data management software for systematic monitoring of electricity consumption, training operators of metering control centres and strengthening the technical capacity of ECG.

The Chairman of the finance committee, James Avedzi said the additional credit which is a concessional facility with Standard International Development Association has one-point-two five percent interest rate per annum, 5years grace period and 25 years repayment period.

Relating to the capacity of ECG to repay the on-lending loan, Mr Avedzi said an assessment on the financial capability of the ECG has been undertaken by Joint Technical Team comprising officials of the World Bank and the Ministry of Finance and the result was positive, indicating that the company can repay the loan.

He said adequate repayment security measures have been instituted to ensure ECG does not default.

The finance committee Chairman told the House that having scrutinized the agreement, the committee is of the view that approval of the credit would help build upon the gains achieved under the first component of the Ghana Energy Development And Access Project [GEDAP].

He explained that the implementation of the project will greatly improve the country’s power distribution network and enhance delivery.