Ghana’s electricity tariffs ten times higher than Nigeria’s, others

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has described the cost of power as the biggest challenge to the nation’s power sector, saying that the cost of electricity was ten times the average tariff in West Africa.

“We produce power from Akosombo at three cents per kilowatt hour. The marginal price charged for businesses is an effective 42 cents, than ten times the average tariff in West Africa,” he said.

Addressing Parliament during his first State of the Nation address on Tuesday, Akufo-Addo also bemoaned the heavy indebtedness of the power sector, which stood at US$2.4 billion debt as at December 2016.

“We have inherited a heavily indebted energy sector, with the net debt reaching $2.4 billion as at December 2016. I have to point out the alarming fact that 800 million US dollars of the debt is owed to local banks, which threaten their stability and that of the whole financial sector,” he said.