Ghana: US to help fund power upgrade

THE US will invest as much as $498.2 million (R5.3 billion) over five years to improve Ghana’s electricity network as part of an effort to spur private investment and help the nation become a regional energy hub. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, an independent US agency that focuses on foreign aid, would initially provide $308.2m to upgrade generators and power lines, among other projects, it said. It would make another $190m available if Ghana met certain targets, which it did not specify. “Energy is increasingly becoming a constraint to growth in Africa,” Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama said on Monday at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington. Ghana planned to invest $37.4m of its own funds in the initiative. – Bloomberg