The failure of Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to come to a deal with the government regarding the restructure of the terms of the debt owed them may cause them to soon cease producing electricity.
On July 1, the IPPs announced that they had reached a temporary agreement with the Electricity Company of Ghana regarding the arrears, postponing a planned shutdown.
However, due to the lack of progress in the negotiations, Dr. Elikplim Apertorgbor, CEO of the Chamber of Independent Power Producers, is warning of an impending power crisis three months later.
“We received some indications of some payments to be made, but we have been waiting for long.”, he disclosed at a seminar, where he gave an address on his evaluation of the power sector in Ghana.
“For over 3 months discussions [have been] ongoing, we have not made any headway and I think we are sitting on life support. Anything could happen. We can’t always guarantee generation. We have been very diplomatic to ensure we dialogue and have a mutual settlement but I am sorry we are getting there,” Dr. Apetogbor added.
Since the start of the year, the IPPs have refused the government’s proposal to restructure their debt, which has increased from about $1.4 billion to $2.3 billion.
Even though restructuring this debt is necessary to carry out the $3 billion IMF bailout program, the IPPs are determined to get what they feel is rightfully theirs.
“The total receivable in respect of the energy generated to ECG is about $1.4 billion. The capacity component and the idle capacity component when all put together, we are talking about over $2.3 billion. We are patiently waiting for the government to pay us our money, how it will happen I don’t know all we are looking for is our money,” Dr. Apetorgbor reiterated.
The IPPs, who produce around half of Ghana’s electricity, claim to be in charge of more than 60% of the country’s thermal power generation capacity.