The Director-General of the Electricity and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC), Dr. Emmanuel Mannah on Monday 20th November, 2023, informed this medium in an exclusive interview at his 55 Berwick Street headquarters in Freetown that the African Development Bank (AFDB) has rated Sierra Leone in 8th position in its 2022 Country Scores and Rankings.
He informed that the Electricity Regulatory Index (ERI) is a composite index that measures the level of development of electricity sector regulatory frameworks in African countries against international standards and best practice and that it is composed of the following three pillars.
It must be recalled that since Dr. Emmanuel Mannahassumed office, Sierra Leone has made steady progress in the index as in 2019 the country was rated 19th, 2020-18th, 2021 -16th and 2022 -8th.
He enlightened that the Regulatory Governance Index (RGI) assesses the institutional and legal design of the regulatory framework, within which the regulator’s mandate is established adding that it is composed of eight indicators and furthered that the Regulatory Substance Index (RSI) evaluates how well electricity sector regulators are carrying out their mandates by developing and implementing the practices and processes that affect regulatory outcomes.
According to Dr. Emmanuel Mannah, the RSI assesses the content of the regulations and actual decisions implemented by regulators and that it is made of seven indicators underscoring that the Regulatory Outcome Index (ROI) measures, from the perspectives of distribution utility companies and/or consumers, the degree to which the regulator has a positive or negative impact on the sector and continued that the ROI assesses how regulatory actions and decisions can achieve the expected results for the sector affirming that it is calculated from an aggregation of survey responses from the electricity distribution utilities and power consumers stressing that the ROI for the utility comprises three sub-indicators.
The EWRC Director-General furthered that the ERI scores were calculated based on responses to comprehensive surveys distributed to electricity sector regulatory institutions and utilities in 45 African countries surveyed that had confirmed regulatory authorities articulating that out of the 45 countries surveyed, 44 regulatory agencies provided responses intimating that this included two from Ghana, which brings the number of countries providing valid responses to 43.
He went on to disclose that 44 regulated utilities from 43 countries also responded adding that the resulting data and analysis are therefore based on a sample of 43 countries that provided the complete sets of data highlighting that the ERI 2022 is based on data that has been submitted from the completed surveys and validated for the period up to August 2022.
The indicators for Regulatory Governance and Regulatory Substance were used to construct the ERI for Governance and Substance (ERIGS) using the primary data obtained from questionnaires sent to the regulators. The RGI and the RSI together assesses the effectiveness of a regulatory environment to support electricity sector reforms, promote efficiency and to fulfil national objectives.
The Director-General of EWRC also revealed that ERIGS provides important insights into national regulatory development without recourse to the effects of the regulatory actions and decisions on the sector disclosing that an assessment was also carried out to ascertain the effect of each regulator’s decisions and actions on the performance of the power utilities that it regulates and ultimately on the sector.
