The Member of Parliament for Afigya Kwabre North and a member of Parliament’s Energy Committee, Collins Adomako-Mensah, says the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has legitimate reasons to be cautious about proposed private sector participation in the operations of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

His comments come after the TUC rejected the World Bank’s push for private sector participation (PSP) in the operations of ECG and the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo).

The union has accused the World Bank of being “disingenuous” in its description of the proposed arrangement and warned that it would resist what it considers an attempt to privatise Ghana’s electricity distribution sector.

Speaking on JoyNews' The Pulse on Tuesday, September 9, Mr Adomako-Mensah stressed that there is an important distinction between privatisation and private sector participation.

According to him, his political party is not opposed to private participation in the energy sector, provided such an arrangement improves efficiency and reliability.

“Fundamentally, the party I belong to, we are not against private participation, and I use the word private participation for a reason, because there’s a fundamental difference between privatisation and private participation.”

He said the party’s manifesto makes clear that it has no major objection to private sector involvement if it can make ECG more efficient and reliable.

“Our [Minority] view is that, and our manifesto was quite clear on that, that we do not have too much problem with private participation, if only it’s going to bring about more efficiency and reliability,” he said.

However, Mr Adomako-Mensah acknowledged the concerns being raised by organised labour, arguing that Ghana’s experience with previous private collaborations in the energy sector makes caution necessary.

He said the TUC’s position should therefore not necessarily be interpreted as opposition to private participation but as a call for the government to carefully scrutinise the proposed arrangement.

“I must also say that it’s against private players within the energy space, because of the history that it has,” he noted.

According to him, the concerns should serve as a reminder to policymakers to ensure that the proposed arrangement is properly designed and does not repeat challenges associated with previous private sector collaborations.

“I’m sure they are cautioning that we should be careful, and that we should make sure we dot every i and cross every t, so we don’t experience what we experienced with other private collaborations,” he said.

The TUC has maintained that the proposed PSP arrangement goes beyond the World Bank’s description of “only revenue collection.”

The union has argued that the model proposed by the Transaction Advisor appointed at the instance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) raises broader concerns about private control and participation in electricity distribution.

The debate is therefore expected to centre on whether the proposed arrangement constitutes genuine private sector participation aimed at improving ECG’s performance or amounts to a form of privatisation that could have long-term implications for Ghana’s electricity distribution system.