COMESA Region Paradox of Energy Suffering from Severe Power Shortfalls: State Minister Observes

ENA,March 5/2020 The COMESA region “is a paradox of energy, richly endowed with power generating natural resources of which only few are harnessed, thus resulting in severe power shortfalls,” Water, Irrigation and Energy State Minister Frehiwot Woldehana said.

Addressing the 9^th AGM of the regional association of energy regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) that opened here today, Frehiwot stated that lack of adequate regional infrastructure in energy in the COMESA region leads to low levels of competitiveness of the countries in the local, regional and global markets, despite endowed in natural resources.

Recent studies have shown that many African countries some of which are  COMESA  countries, unfortunately suffer power shortages and regular interruptions to services, he noted.

“As our economies grow, so does demand for energy. Yet these very chronic shortages hold back our potential for growth,” the state minister elaborated.

Power outages affect production, with Africa losing 12 percent of production time as compared to 7 percent for South Asia, Frehiwot pointed out.

“We must (therefore) tap our indigenous resources so that we are not dependent upon imports of fuel to light our cities and power our growth,” he further underscored.

Investing in infrastructure such as transmission interconnectors and pipelines is important as generation because moving and evacuating energy efficiently and cheaply from areas of production and surpluses to areas of deficit, domestically or across borders, the state minister stressed.

COMESA Assistant Secretary General, Ambassador Kipyego Cheluget said the energy challenge which the region is facing should be seen as an investment opportunity for power generation.

He added that “it should be an opportunity to build regional power interconnectors in order to facilitate trade in power from surplus to deficit regions.”

According to him, COMESA will continue to facilitate the enhancement of energy security in the region through facilitating the process of domestication of adopted energy regulation instruments.

COMESA's current strategy is economic prosperity through regional integration with its 21 member states, a population of over 450 million, and global trade goods worth 235 billion USD.