A Former Board Chairman of the Volta River Authority (VRA), Kweku Awotwi is calling for a least-cost procurement competitive tender regime to curb the inefficiencies in the power sector.

According to him, that’s the only solution to the lingering issues bothering the sector’s efficiency and sustainability.

His comment is coming at a time the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) gave the government up to June 30, 2023, to pay a minimum of 30% of the outstanding energy debt else they will not guarantee the continued generation of electricity.

Reacting to the development on the Joy FM Super Morning Show, Mr. Awotwi said the government would have to be pragmatic about its future power contracts.

“We got to be very quickly get a least cost procurement competitive tender regime. If we don’t do that, we will always turn to what will be these emergency situations where we will scrabble to bring in power”.

“We get them at terms that are not necessarily favourable to us”, he added.

He explains that, it will take a strong political will and institutional capacity to know what to do to ensure efficient and reliable power supply.

“Clearly very much about having the political will and institutional capacity to follow through on, what we know we need to do. So, the government knows what to do, we got to get our tariffs right, cover the cost of ECG”.

The Independent Power Producers, Distributors and Bulk Consumers had earlier threatened to cut power supply to the national grid by the end of June 2023 if the government fails to settle its debt.

This potentially could create a huge power shortfall as the IPPs control over 65% of the available thermal generation capacity in the country. Joy Business learnt that as of April 30, 2023, the government owed the IPPs $1.630 billion.