In a bid to provide quality and reliable electricity to households and industries, Ghana’s first attempt to establish a modern legal framework for the energy industry was developed in the 1920s. A strategy paper was then launched in between 2012-2016 to support the 2 strategic stalwarts: “Improving productivity in Ghanaian enterprises and, supporting economic and structural reforms aimed at improving the business environment”. A Shared Growth and Development Agenda was also created to increase the rate of economic development through the use of modernized agriculture, infrastructure development, energy access and industrialization. The list of interventions goes on but a staggering percentage of the Ghanaian population still do not have adequate access to energy services due to high cost of fuel for electricity generation; poor infrastructure in the production, transportation and usage of energy; inadequate regulatory capacity and involvement; operational difficulties in utility companies, amongst others. The writer believes the onus lies on the government to obtain a thorough understanding of the relationship between power investments and the cases of energy poverty experienced by the people in order to be well equipped to develop strategies that would diversity fuel sources in the energy mix into renewables and gas-fired thermal plants. The government is also urged to include citizens in the policy-making process which can also be interpreted as treating the people as curators of policies and not the targets as proposed by Gillard et al. (2017). Citizens are also encouraged to use elections as means of assessing the energy initiatives of a political party since they are the most affected by government decisions.
Source
Ackah, I. (September 7, 2018) Ghana Energy Policy Since 1920: The Plans, Promises & the Election Cycle. Powering Ghana in 2017, Time to Deal with the Triple Fs (Fuel, Finance & Flip-Flops) Issue #3. Pp 48-50
Ishmael Ackah, "GHANA’S ELECTRICITY POLICY SINCE 1920", contributed by Barbara Ackun, The Energy Rights Project, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 10 June 2020, accessed 21 December 2024. https://energyrights.info/content/ghana’s-electricity-policy-1920
Critical Commentary
In a bid to provide quality and reliable electricity to households and industries, Ghana’s first attempt to establish a modern legal framework for the energy industry was developed in the 1920s. A strategy paper was then launched in between 2012-2016 to support the 2 strategic stalwarts: “Improving productivity in Ghanaian enterprises and, supporting economic and structural reforms aimed at improving the business environment”. A Shared Growth and Development Agenda was also created to increase the rate of economic development through the use of modernized agriculture, infrastructure development, energy access and industrialization. The list of interventions goes on but a staggering percentage of the Ghanaian population still do not have adequate access to energy services due to high cost of fuel for electricity generation; poor infrastructure in the production, transportation and usage of energy; inadequate regulatory capacity and involvement; operational difficulties in utility companies, amongst others. The writer believes the onus lies on the government to obtain a thorough understanding of the relationship between power investments and the cases of energy poverty experienced by the people in order to be well equipped to develop strategies that would diversity fuel sources in the energy mix into renewables and gas-fired thermal plants. The government is also urged to include citizens in the policy-making process which can also be interpreted as treating the people as curators of policies and not the targets as proposed by Gillard et al. (2017). Citizens are also encouraged to use elections as means of assessing the energy initiatives of a political party since they are the most affected by government decisions.