Ghana’s power distributor, the Electricity Company has been taken over by the Philippines Meralco Consortium.
The takeover by the consortium known as Power Distribution Services, PDS Ghana Ltd takes effect from Friday.
The PDS Ghana Ltd is now expected to take charge of power distribution for the next 20 years.
The firm would be the electricity service provider in all of the ECG’s operational areas most parts of the country.
Under the deal assets of the Ghanaian power distributor would be leased to the PDS Ghana Limited which is the concessionaire.
Meanwhile ECG would become an Asset Holding Company but will have all of its assets back once the concession expires.
Meralco will be injecting a minimum of $580 million into Ghana’s power sector for the first five years of operation.
PDS would operate and maintain existing ECG assets and provide sustainability for new assets for the next 20 years.
Meralco Consortium partnered AEnergia SA, an Angolan company, and three Ghanaian companies; TG Energy solution Ghana Limited, Santa Power limited and GTS Power Limited to form PDS.
Ghana’s power crisis four years ago led to the government seeking funding to revamp the power distributor.
The impact of the power crisis was severe especially for businesses leading to job losses.
Ghanaian workers in the power sector however kicked against the privatization of the power distributor.
The workers feared there would be job losses in the company if the takeover was executed.
Source: Africafeeds.com
