Why Should Ghana Borrow Money For An ECG Destined For A Private Company To Manage For 35 Years?

It so happens that even a not-so-well-resourced old fogey like Kofi Thompson, living a continent away in Ghana, was able to access some of the essential parts of Power Secure International's (PSI) proposal to the government of the Bahamas, for the management of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC).

The question then is: Why on earth have the geniuses who rule our country not made available to the good people of Ghana, all the many proposals said to have been received from private companies from as far and wide apart as India and the U.S., to manage the Electricity Company of Ghana  (ECG)?

And could those selfsame geniuses explain to this uneducated old fool, Kofi Thompson, why it is that despite the fact that most Ghanaians now accept that the ECG ought to be given out to a private company to manage, because it is inefficient and financially-challenged (in short a veritable corporate basket case), they are still planning to saddle taxpayers with yet more debt, by going to borrow money to purchase prepaid smart meters (that are anything but smart), for that selfsame state-owned corporate basket case they are proposing to give to a private-sector company to manage for as long as 35 solid years?

It is something that is befuddling to an old ignoramus like Kofi Thompson. Is the whole point about handing over the management  of the ECG to a private company to manage, not to unburden ourselves from having to bear the cost of fixing the many ills (most of it resulting from the crooked dealings of its many dishonest employees) afflicting the ECG, and get the private company whose proposal wins it the valuable ECG management contract, to fund the entirety of the modernisation and transformation of the ECG, needed to turn that benighted company  into an efficient and profitable power distribution entity?

So what is the point of asking Parliament to approve a hefty loan of some U.S.$84 million or thereabouts to buy prepaid smart meters for the ECG?

This blog humbly suggests that Ghana's Parliament should request that the government and Parliament of the Bahamas make available to it the management services agreement between the Bahamian government and Power Secure International for managing the BEC.

They will see what a win-win management services agreement for the ECG ought to look like: One in which the private-sector bid winner commits to fund the entirety of the modernisation of the ECG and bring down the cost of electricity for all consumers. Such a step by Parliament will save Mother Ghana from being saddled with yet another rip-off agreement with a foreign entity that does not benefit the good people of this country in the slightest.

It is worth pointing out to Ghana's Parliament that Power Secure International  has a renewable energy subsidiary that is world-class. They ought to insist that the eventual bid winner to manage the ECG also has a world-class renewable energy subsidiary - since off-grid energy independence from renewable sources with storage might be the best way to lower bills  for electricity consumers in Ghana.

Ghanaians  must not allow our nation's vampire-elites to rip Mother Ghana off in the transfer of the ECG to a private company - by borrowing money to fund the purchase of prepaid smart meters for an ECG that will soon be transferred to a private company to manage for the ridiculously lengthy period of 35 years. Let the private company pay for those confounded prepaid smart meters. Ghana fuo abre eni ebusiabo. Haaba.