By: Mabel Adorkor Annang
To develop competencies and expertise in regulation and governance of Utilities the Public Utility Regulatory Commission, PURC and GIMPA have inaugurated a Centre of Excellence in Public Utility Regulation, CEPUR.
The Centre will among other objectives, promote scholarly dialogues and publications on utility regulation. At the inaugural ceremony in Accra, the Executive Secretary of PURC Dr. Ishmeal Ackah explained that the Centre will encourage professionalism through research and build capacity in Utility Regulation in Africa and beyond.
The Centre of Excellence in Public Utility Regulation, CEPUR is an institutional collaboration between PURC and GIMPA. The Centre is established to build the capacity of actors in the electricity, water, natural Gas and other public Utility sectors.
The Center will deliver programmes leading to the award of certificates in diverse courses relating to the regulation and management of Utilities, engaging in cutting-edge research for investment and policy decision-making on utilities.
The programmes are intended for policymakers, regulators, industry players, Civil society Organizations, Academia and the general public who desire to acquire knowledge in economics of regulation of the various Utility sectors.
The Executive Secretary of PURC Dr. Ishmeal Ackah said CEPUR aims to become the leading Centre for Research and Capacity building in Utility regulation in Africa and beyond.
Dr. Ackah said ” the Africa energy landscape has evolved from the time where access was the major issue, now we are talking about affordability, we are talking about availability of service and also the Energy transition. In all this you see foreign experts guiding how Africa should think and how Africa should behave in terms of energy dynamics. So PURC is collaborating with GIMPA to set up this Centre as an African made centre using Africans, using the knowledge and experiences generated in Africa”.
The Energy Minister Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh lauded the PURC and GIMPA for the initiative, saying the Centre is timely and relevant for the industry.
“I urged the GIMPA-PURC Centre for the Excellence in Public Utility Regulation, CEPUR, to take the call to research seriously. It must find innovative and effective ways of collaborating with industry and the corporate world to engage in quality, strategic studies aimed at finding practical solutions to real issues and actualizing research findings to develop our economy,” Dr. Opoku Prempeh intimated.
The Rector of GIMPA Prof. Samuel Kwaku Bonsu said the Centre will be a leading point of ideas and policies to support not only Ghana’s PURC but also similar institutions across the continent.
“I understand that steps have been initiated towards making the Centre part of a global network of utilities research centre,” Prof. Kwaku Bonsu added.
The core values of the Centre are competence, integrity, teamwork, and excellence.
