Cabinet has approved the proposed Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) concession by Melraco Consortium.

This should pave the way for parliament to scrutinize documents covering the planned concession.

Chief Executive Officer of Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), Martin Esson Benjamin told JoyBusiness at the launch of the Ghana Power Compact Internship and Mentoring programme that all the necessary work have been done for parliament’s consideration.

“It is gone past cabinet, we don’t know the outcome of parliament but I know cabinet had a good look at it and they were comfortable with it,” he said.

Mr Esson Benjamin explained the processes involved in the ECG privatization.

“You will need an additional seven months to discuss a lot of related issues. The basic agreements have been discussed and negotiated and everybody is comfortable.

But it is like having now been given keys to a house and have some work to do together before you hand over the keys to the person who is going to be the next tenant”, he said.

Under this compact, six projects will be implemented to address the root causes of the unavailability and unreliability of power in Ghana which are ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround Project, NEDCo Financial and Operational Turnaround Project, Regulatory Strengthening and Capacity Building Project, and Access Project.

Others include Power Generation Sector Improvement Project and Energy Efficiency, and Demand Side Management Project.

Internship programme

In order to attract more women into the power sector, MiDA has launched the first ever Ghana Power compact internship and mentorship programme for women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

The pilot project will see 50 female students from 5 universities go through a two-month internship in the power and energy sector. This project is expected to run until 2021 with the aim of seeing over 300 females trained and mentored.

Beneficiary schools include Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Accra technical University, Koforidua Technical University, Kumasi Technical University and Akwatia Technical Institute.