A Member of Parliament’s Energy and Mines Committee has bemoaned the lack of transparency with regards to the country’s energy capacity charges.

According to Mr Edward Abambire Bawa, there have been contrasting values from the Finance Ministry and the Chamber of Independent Power Producers on the matter in question.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on Wednesday, he revealed that “recently, there was a question put before the Minister of Finance as to how much capacity charges we have paid as a result of some particular companies. The figure the Finance Minister gave, later on, we got to know he was not truthful to Parliament.

“The Chamber of Independent Power Producers came out and said those figures he (Finance Minister) quoted were monies paid for power used and not capacity charges. It tells us that there is some level of lack of transparency.”

He also alleged that data on peak demand capacity from the 2020 Electricity Supply plan by the Energy Commission also does not add.

“Today, as we speak, the 2020 Electricity supply plan that was done by the Energy Commission, you will realize that they indicate if you look at our installed generation capacity, it is roughly 5,137.0. They tell us that our dependable capacity at peak is 4,627.6. This was as of last year. I know that the figures have gone up now. They tell us our peak demand we were using 3,115. If you talk to anybody who has worked in the energy sector, they will tell you for every power system, you need what we called redundancy.

“On the average, it is about 20 per cent of the peak demand. So what you use as your peak demand, 20 per cent of it should be there as reserve margin such that if there is a problem, you can always push those ones in. So if you do 20 per cent of 3,115, you are getting around 1420. If you add that to 3,115, you have almost consumed the capacity because you are getting around 4,500. That’s why I say those figures don’t really add up,” he told host, Aisha Ibrahim.

Mr Edward Abambire Bawa also stated that although the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has admitted its loss to be 26.6 per cent, the Energy Minister “in the early part of this year met the World Bank about the losses, and he quoted 31 per cent as the losses.”

His concerns come at a time when the Electricity Company of Ghana, in the Auditor General’s 2020 report, has been accused of locking up procured prepaid meters and conductors purchased between 2014 and 2016, worth ¢59million.

The Audit Report also revealed that ECG lost 2,649.08 GWh, which represents 24.30% of power purchased from the power-producing companies, to system losses.

Again, ECG incurred expenses to the tune of ¢182,576,235.15 as capacity charge by Cenit Energy for the 12 months in 2018.

The Auditor-General, therefore, recommended that the management of ECG ensure that the prepayment meters and conductors procured are issued out to the users.

Failure to do so, the report indicated will results in the officers who engaged in the procurement being made to recover the funds.

Meanwhile, Mr Edward Abambire Bawa holds the view that matters at ECG are worse than what has been captured by the Auditor General.

Source: www.myjoyonline.com