Ghanaian businesses have been challenged to take up a concessionaire role at the Electricity Company of Ghana as part of the power sector improvement programme.

The programme is under phase two of the Millennium Development Compact agreement between the government of Ghana and the US government.

Chief Executive officer of the Millennium Development Authority Ing. Owura Sarfo told Joy News if the Ghanaian businesses do not have the muscle they can team up to form a consortium to manage ECG under the concessionaire programme.

Explaining the details of the concessionaire role, Ing Sarfo said, it is a third party right to manage Ghana's biggest power distributers.

It is just like a land owner who gives right to a farmer to come work on the farm after which the land owner takes two-third of farm produce, he explained further.

There are concerns the concessionaire arrangement is part of a grand scheme to privatize ECG especially, to foreign investors but the MiDA CEO said the arrangement is "open to everybody including Ghanaians."

He pointed out that the concessionaire arrangement will not go without local participation, adding even if a foreign investor wins the bid to take up that role it must have a local component involved.

Even though concessionaires are given between a 20 to 30 year period within which to recoup their investment, Ing Sarfo said they are yet to agree on the time frame for the would be concessionaire under the ECG arrangement.

The arrangement is expected to begin in 2017.

MiDA is meanwhile dealing with some conditions precedent before the phase two of the Millennium Development Compact will come into force.

Some of these conditions include a launch of tender documents of ECG, and how to deal with government debt owed ECG.