by Alex Osei-Boateng
ACCRA, Nov. 3 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo on Friday opened the 12th General Assembly of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) while calling for ensuring stable and affordable power for te sub-region.
The event brought together experts in the power sector in West Africa, international funding agencies and the donor community to address issues relating to the establishment of a regional electricity market by 2019.
Akufo-Addo said the production and delivery of stable, reliable and affordable power was critical to the integration and development of West Africa.
He said the availability of electricity would greatly influence how rapidly West African countries would be able to increase agricultural and industrial productivity and achieve rapid economic development.
According to him, the annual growth in demand for electricity is estimated at 10 percent, which means that for every seven years, investment in electricity infrastructure has to be doubled in most West African countries.
Akufo-Addo said Ghana had been able to attract many private-sector players into the generation end of the business, and in the near future should be able to export its excess generation to other countries.
Ghana's Minister for Energy Boakye Agyarko asked the delegates to think more about the challenges to realizing the regional electricity trade and how to make electricity available to the citizens of West Africa for the socio-economic development of the bloc.
"The average access rate of 40 percent is too modest to match and fulfill the grand and noble missions of universal access and industrialization which we have set for ourselves," he said.
