By Ashiadey Dotse
The President of IMANI-Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has called on the Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Jinapor, to allow more private sector participation in the energy industry to reduce government interference and political control.
Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Big Issue on Saturday, March 8, Mr. Cudjoe said past challenges with the Power Distribution Services (PDS) agreement were not due to PDS’s poor performance but rather corruption within the government. He explained that some individuals in power tried to profit illegally from the deal.
He noted that data from the period when PDS was in charge shows that the company managed the energy sector well. According to him, removing PDS did not lead to significant improvements, proving that private participation can benefit the industry.
Mr. Cudjoe also warned against frequent changes in energy sector management whenever there is a new government, saying such decisions do not necessarily lead to better performance.
“I think we need to change this approach. The idea that simply changing management improves performance is wrong. I have not seen any State-Owned Enterprise that has become better just because leadership was changed. The real issue is that those in charge do not have the freedom to work independently,” he said.
He urged the Energy Minister to review PDS’s performance data and consider bringing back a similar private-sector arrangement.
“The PDS agreement had problems because of corruption, not because PDS failed to deliver. I encourage the Minister to carefully study the data and see if a similar approach could work again,” he added.
Mr. Cudjoe also criticized the way governments manage the energy sector, saying that every new administration pushes its own projects for political or personal gain instead of focusing on long-term development.
“As long as our political system remains the same, this problem will not go away. That is why I strongly support private-sector participation. However, we should not start from scratch. Instead, we must analyze PDS’s performance and compare it to the current situation before making any decisions,” he concluded.
