Mr Martin Eson-Benjamin, the Chief Executive Officer of MiDA, appended his signature on behalf of the Authority while Mr Boakye Kyeremanteng Agyarko, the Minister of Energy, signed for the Ministry, at a short ceremony in Accra.   It was witnessed by Mr Kenneth James Miller, the Resident Country Director of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

The Millennium Compact Project falls under the 498.2 million-dollar Agreement signed between the Ghana and the United States governments in 2014, which aimed at reducing poverty in Ghana through sustainable economic growth.

Ghana had decided to focus the Compact funds on addressing some of her power sector challenges through enhanced private sector participation in the related energy value chain.  Mr Eson-Benjamin said the signing of the IEA became necessary due to the merging of the then Ministry of Power and the former Ministry of Petroleum, which had now become the Ministry of Energy.

He said MiDA had, in October 2016, signed the IEAs with the then Power and Petroleum ministries but had to amend and update the annulled Agreement with the change of government. The CEO of MiDA said the Authority had also linked up with all the agencies under the Ministry of Energy, which had signed the IEAs to enable MiDA to disburse funds and commence work on all the projects specified under the Ghana Power Compact.

“This morning’s ceremony crowns it all and enables MiDA to benefit directly from the Ministry’s support in the implementation of these transformational Projects,” he said. He mentioned some of the projects being implemented in Ghana under the Power Compact as the ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround Project, the NEDCo Financial and Operational Turnaround Project, and the Access Project.

Others are the Regulatory Strengthening and Capacity Building, the Energy Efficiency and Demand-side Management, and the Power Generation Sector Improvement projects.   Mr Agyarko, on his part, expressed happiness about the continuation of the Power Compact Project, describing the signing of the IEA, an operational agreement, as a milestone that would ensure the smooth implementation of the compacts.

He expressed the commitment of the sector Ministry towards supporting the activities of the power compact. Mr Miller said Ghana had three more years to access the rest of the fund to implement the Compact detail. He said much efforts should be put in place to enable the country to secure the funds to help in the power sector, through partnering the private sector.