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Based upon the model implemented in England and Wales and in some parts of the United States and Latin America, reforms were geared towards restructuring and privatising state-owned electricity utilities in order to try to improve efficiency through competitive wholesale electricity markets.

The impact of reform on poverty reduction also became a cause for concern. Even where private sector participation had occurred, expanding access to non-industrial consumers had been considered unprofitable. Stark figures for household access levels, such as 2 billion people without access to electricity worldwide, were difficult to ignoreii.

interestingly, PSMPs tend to emphasise use of large-scale generation projects to exploit hydro and thermal potential and regional integration of grid networks. Whilst a stable grid serving the entire population might be an attractive long-term goal, rarely has such distributional equity been achieved. More often than not, grid extension programmes have failed to reach the rural poor because they have not always proven to be the most cost-effective means of expanding access to rural areas, mainly due to low population density and greater technical losses as transmission networks increase.

welcome to the world of Nigeria, Angola, and Gabon. Now that you are no longer just a backyard producer of cocoa and gold, you will begin to notice significant shifts in how you are treated by the international community - defined as the countries of Western Europe and America. You see, in international relations, all men were not created equal. The rule here is Orwellian: the owner of black gold is infinitely more equal than the owner of gold and cocoa. Don’t even mention groundnut sellers like Senegal. They are not on the radar and will not be until the Americans discover in the future that groundnut contains ingredients that could cure obesity. That’s the way it is. That’s just the way it is.

Here are the early indications of your new status that you must watch out for: you will be promoted from occasional spectator status to enhanced spectator status during G8 and G20 summits; President Atta Mills will be invited to Washington in the first quarter of 2011 on a grand state visit and White House chefs will be taught to prepare gourmet kenkey; your Ambassador in Washington will suddenly become a very important man and will begin to receive lots of invitations to White House diners much to the displeasure of Nigeria and South Africa; your Ambassador will soon become the Dean of the African diplomatic corps in Washington. That’s the way it is. That’s just the way it is.

Hillary Clinton will now regularly mention a special relationship that has always existed between Ghana and the USA in her speeches

The question to Ghana, Cameroon,Chad, Sudan, Angola, Gabon is, What did you do with your natural resources and other producct to better your people before and after oil discovery and the answer is nothing - zero -nil

Corruption i is endemic in Ghana despite their showing good face and conducting good election. Corruption is a big problem in Ghana, Example is the recent world cup Tournamant in South Africa, when Ghananian Players did quite well, but as they came back to Ghana, corrupt officials in Ghananian Football Association stole the world cup players money (fees) and some of the players have not been paid in full till today, and Ghana footbal body has been suspened by the Government, and investigation is on going and FIFA has suspended Ghana from International competition for corrupt practices.

Ghana cannot compare to Nigeria in any tangible thing now or in the near future, yes they have been conducting good elections and thats its for a small poor country, and Ghanaians and their leaders should stop camparing with Nigeria what they have not been able to do with cocoa and Gold.*

NNPC General Managing Director Dr. Mohammed Barkindo was interested in doing something on climate change in preparation for the climate change summit in Copenhagen December 6-18. Barkindo was spread pretty thin so Shell will ask him how they can help him prepare for the summit.

She said it would be helpful if the Embassy would continue to deliver low-level messages of concern. In particular, she thought it would be helpful for the Embassy to call on Speaker of the House Dimeji Bankoke to see where he stood on the bill. Beyond that, she would like to keep the Embassy in reserve and use it as a “silver bullet” if the PIB passes the House. The Ambassador noted that the U.S., U.K., Dutch and Qthe House. The Ambassador noted that the U.S., U.K., Dutch and French Embassies had already made a joint call on NNPC General Managing Director Dr. Mohammed Barkindo.

Pickard said Shell had good sources to show that their data had been sent to both China and Russia. She said the GON had forgotten that Shell had seconded people to all the relevant ministries and that Shell consequently had access to everything that was being done in those ministries.

Ghanaian President John Atta Mills says the country will learn from the mistakes of other African oil producers and save some of the revenue for future generations after production starts today. Government agreements to borrow more than $14 billion say otherwise.

“We must give thanks to God for giving us this natural asset,” Mills said after opening a tap to release oil aboard a storage ship today. “It means we are assuming very serious responsibilities. Those of us in leadership positions must ensure oil is a blessing is not a curse.”

Ghana has been overspending since the oil was discovered in 2007, with the government posting a fiscal deficit in excess of 5 percent of GDP in each of the past three years.

The World Bank Board today approved a credit of US$38 million to the Government of Ghana for implementation of an Oil and Gas Capacity Building Project.

Ghana and its partners in the Jubilee field have worked hard to bring it into production in barely three years a record time by industry standards but institutional development for sector management by the state and education and skills development face significant challenges.

Given the strategic role civil society is expected to play in promoting accountability and community participation, an additional grant of US$2 million is being provided under the Banks Governance Partnership Facility (GPF) to support a wide range of activities to be championed and implemented by civil society and community based organizations.

Forecast estimate that Jubilee oilfields can produce 55,000 barrels of light sweet oil per day. With further development of more oil wells, production could reach 120,000 barrels per day. At that rate, Ghana would soon be awash with petro-dollars, which if properly managed, would provide much-needed funds for the development of infrastructure and enhance the living conditions of the people. Before it struck oil, Ghana depended on cocoa and minerals like gold, diamond and bauxite as foreign exchange earners which it prudently utilized to build a fairly decent economy with a modest but steady four per cent yearly growth rate. With democracy now well into the third decade under a succession of enlightened and committed leadership, the country is now being touted as a model for the continent. With new-found oil wealth, the future promises to be rosier.

From $30 billion, the fund had trickled down to about $450 million by mid-2010, according to Veronica Kalema of Fitch Ratings, which late last year downgraded Nigeria’s outlook from “stable” to “negative” partly because of the vast and largely unaccounted outflow from the Excess Crude Account.

Some of the vast pile of cash, perhaps $5 billion to $8 billion, has been spent on so-far unfruitful efforts to upgrade Nigeria’s feeble power output, which remains no better than that of a mid-size American city for a nation of over 150 million people, Africa’s most populous. But the rest, some $22 billion or more, remains largely unaccounted for.

On Dec. 1 last year, Nigeria’s cabinet approved the creation of a sovereign wealth fund that would invest any excess revenues generated from the sale of the country’s oil, which it exports at a rate of roughly two million barrels per day.

This isn’t the first time that the country has made such an effort. In 2003, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, Nigeria set up the Excess Crude Oil Account, or ECA, to serve a similar purpose.

If Nigeria’s new fund succeeds in delivering tangible infrastructure improvements and other development outcomes from its oil profits, the country could become a role model for other poverty-stricken but resource-rich countries in West Africa.Ghana just began pumping oil in December, and significant reserves have recently been found off the coasts of Liberia and Sierra Leone. No doubt those countries will look to their larger neighbor to the east, the region’s economic heavyweight, in deciding how to manage their own oil revenues.