According to the African Development Bank (AfDB’s) 2018 Electricity Regulatory Index (ERI) report, Uganda has the best electricity regulatory system in Africa. Second is Namibia, tailed by Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Cameroon, South Africa, Togo, Senegal, Côte D’ivoire, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and the Gambia respectively.
“The implication of this result is that the impact of the regulator’s actions and decisions for Uganda, Namibia and Tanzania, as viewed from the licensed power generation, transmission and distribution companies’ perspective, seemed to have had a more positive impact on the performance of the utilities than in Nigeria,” the report says.
ERI is composed of the Regulatory Governance Index (RGI), the Regulatory Substance Index (RSI) and the Regulatory Outcome Index (ROI).
RGI looks at the regulatory framework establishing the regulator, the clarity of the roles of the regulator, regulatory independence, and an independent body outside the regulator to resolve conflicts. It also looks that the openness of the regulator’s decision-making, a mechanism for the regulator to obtain views from all stakeholders and the predictability of the regulatory environment.
ROI measures, from the perspective of utilities, the degree to which the electricity sector regulators have positive or negative impacts on the sector.
It considers financial performance, technical quality of electricity supplied, and commercial quality of service and electricity access.
The report says the aim of the ERI is to measure national regulatory development.
“As a result, the ERI scores for certain countries that have low electricity access rates and power sector issues – such as Nigeria and Malawi – may be significantly higher than countries that have, in relative terms, more developed energy and power sectors marked by higher levels of access and investment into power infrastructure – such as South Africa and Kenya,” the report says.
