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Experts in the energy sector have recommended the establishment of a fund to foster public-private participation (PPP) in the critical area.

This they say is necessary if Africa is to generate adequate energy to power its development. According to them, the fund must be at national and sub-regional levels, and will assist in PPP preparatory and implementation activities as well as support the financing of components of PPP obligations.

The recommendation was made at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA/SRO-WA) Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on Strengthening Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in the Electricity Sector in West Africa during at a two-day workshop on the subject.

The workshop was organized to conduct an in-depth review of the nature and structure of PPPs in electricity sector in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal and their supporting institutional frameworks so as to extract best practices and learning points towards strengthening this business model and enhance access to electricity in the sub-region.

The Group has further called on member states to consider co-enterprise in PPP funding arrangements to promote national and sub-regional investment in the electricity sector. In addition, the Group has enjoined African countries to ensure that funding and budgetary support continues to be provided for network interconnections and rural electrification even in the advent of PPPs.

The six point recommendation also entreated governments in the West Africa sub-region, to develop and/or strengthen dedicated multi-disciplinary PPP Units to handle all PPP processes including promotion, monitoring and evaluation; develop a sub regional template to provide member states with guidelines; and also develop and/or harmonize regulatory and legislative frameworks for PPPs in West Africa in order to promote fair competition and transparency.

Speaking at the function, a Deputy Minister of Energy, Mr. Inusah Fuseini, said government would in the course of the year, review the existing Public-Private Partnerships policy environment, legal and regulatory framework and develop an institutional structure for Public-Private Partnerships.

He said the government was aware of the high level of energy poverty in the country and the concomitant adverse effects on economic development and was working tirelessly to create a favorable environment to improve efficiency, reliability and cost effectiveness in the electricity sector.

He said the government had instituted a National Energy Policy (2010) which had set a lofty goal of Ghana becoming a major exporter of power in the sub-region by 2015 through capacity addition and modernizing transmission and distribution infrastructure.

The Director of the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Africa responsible for the West Africa sub-region, Mrs. Ba Fatoumata Sy, said shortage of electricity had severely affected the economies of the sub-region and continued to hamper the development of most West African Countries.

She said investments were needed to overcome the problem, adding that energy was one of the key vectors of development which had an impact on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to which ECOWAS member states had subscribed.

The workshop treated topics such as The Electricity Deficit and its Economic and Social Impact In West Africa; Financing Infrastructure Development In West Africa – The Case Of The Electricity Sector; Electrify Interconnection In West Africa: PPPs as A Strategy For Developing The Projects Of The WAPP; Creating A Sustainable Enabling Environment For Energy Programmes and Projects In West Africa; and An Overview of the Public-Private Partnerships In The Electricity Sector.

Credit: myjoyonline.com