World Bank commends ECG’s disbursement of $39m funds for power projects
The World Bank has commended the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for the disbursement of about $39 million under the Ghana Energy Development and Access Project (GEDAP), citing it as the highest of any world Bank project currently under implementation in Ghana.
The amount accounted for about 25% of all World Bank disbursements for investments project in Ghana totalling $163 million (excluding budget support) in the 2011 financial year spanning the period July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011.
It is the second consecutive financial year that the GEDAP has emerged as the highest in respect to disbursement of funds for World Bank projects.
In a message to the Minister of Energy, the World Bank was also happy to note that the next best performing project disbursement in excess of $18 million for the 2011 financial year was the West Africa Power Pool (WAPP), which is being implemented by the ECG and other partners in the energy sector.
The two power projects, taken together, account for about 35% of all World Bank project disbursement for the financial year under review.
The GEDAP is a five-year intervention (2007-2012) that seeks to connect 114,000 rural folks across the country to the national electricity grid and also improve the quality of power in urban areas.
The World Bank initially contributed $210 million at the beginning of the project but in 2010, the ECG, leading the implementation consortium that includes the Ministry of Energy, the Volta River Authority and ARB Apex Bank, managed to negotiate an additional $70 million from the Bank, bringing the total contribution to $280 million.
Source: Daily Graphic