The Africa Sustainable Energy Centre (ASEC) has warned that Ghana’s power distribution crisis remains largely unaddressed after the 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA), even as it credited the government for meaningful progress on debt and macroeconomic stability.
In a statement released Thursday, ASEC said the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is currently losing up to 32 percent of all power it distributes, the highest rate in more than two decades, warning that settling inherited debts without fixing the underlying system will only produce another cycle of tariff increases.
“Clearing debt is not the same as fixing the system,” ASEC said. “Until that loss is stopped through smart metering, concession-based distribution reform and serious enforcement, every debt settlement will be followed by another round of tariff increases.”
Industrial Competitiveness at Risk
The think tank noted that Ghanaian industry pays approximately US$0.16 per kilowatt-hour for electricity, more than double the rates manufacturers pay in Vietnam and China, where costs sit around US$0.07 per kilowatt-hour. ASEC said the SONA did not address this competitive disadvantage and called on the government to introduce what it described as an Independence Tariff, fully zero-rating duties and Value Added Tax (VAT) on solar panels, inverters and battery storage.
ASEC acknowledged government’s success in bringing inflation down from 54.1 percent to single digits and rebuilding foreign reserves to US$13.8 billion. It also praised the settlement of US$1.47 billion in energy sector debts owed to independent power producers (IPPs), but cautioned that the gains risk being overshadowed by the structural weaknesses that generated the debts in the first place.
Oil Production Decline Goes Unaddressed
ASEC flagged a significant omission in the SONA: Ghana’s oil production dropped 15 percent in 2025, with petroleum receipts falling 35.7 percent year-on-year as the Jubilee and TEN fields mature. The think tank warned that infrastructure programmes funded by oil revenues, including market construction and agricultural road projects, face genuine risk if the production trajectory is not reversed.
While welcoming the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation’s (GNPC) new technical partnerships with Petrobras and Sonatrach, ASEC called for a transparent licensing regime and urged the government to publish its National Petroleum Revitalisation Strategy for public review.
Carbon Markets Left Out of Address
The think tank also raised concern over the government’s abolition of the Emission Tax, which it described as Ghana’s only domestic carbon-pricing instrument. Ghana is among Africa’s most advanced participants in the Article 6.2 framework of the Paris Agreement, and ASEC said removing the tax at a time of growing global attention on carbon governance sends the wrong signal.
ASEC called on the Ministry of Finance to develop a domestic climate finance strategy that does not depend on international grants or bilateral carbon deals.
The organisation welcomed the GH¢401 million allocated to the Women’s Development Bank but said its potential will only be realised if the institution is properly integrated into the Green Finance Taxonomy with dedicated lending lines for solar energy, clean cooking and agro-processing.
ASEC also noted that the removal of the 1.5 percent withholding tax on small-scale gold sales, at a time when gold prices have exceeded US$4,100 per troy ounce, represented a significant revenue loss the SONA did not account for.
