The Government of Ghana is set to save about $300 million following successful renegotiations with Independent Power Producers (IPPs), which have reduced the sector’s outstanding debt from $1.5 billion to $1.2 billion.
Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye who serves on the committee that led the restructuring talks made the disclosure on the sidelines of the Future of Energy Conference underway in Accra.
According to him, the process was carefully designed to ease the financial burden on the government while safeguarding investor confidence in the power sector whiles commending the IPPs for the corporation.
“The IPPs have been very magnanimous, even though we have a binding contract and agreements with them. They have been magnanimous to give us a haircut, which I am sure the minister will announce at some point.
“We are just here to help to make the power sector sustainable. We are looking close to about $300 million on the debt and also over a billion in future payments,” he said.
The long-standing debt burden has in recent years strained relations between government and IPPs, with some producers shutting down operations due to non-payment.
These disruptions occasionally affected power supply and raised concerns about the country’s energy security.
