The Southern African Development Community (SADC) says it is looking to complete by the end of this year an evaluative study that will lead to the transformation of the Southern African Regional Regulators Association (RERA).
The body is a regional authority, which will facilitate border transactions and other transnational matters that are not regulated by each country, APA can report on Wednesday.
To this end, energy sector leaders and experts from countries in the regional bloc have been meeting in Maputo on Wednesday to evaluate and the Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP).
The RIDMP reveals that the region faces a number of challenges regarding the provision of adequate regional infrastructure and a shortage of electricity supply, which are vital to enabling industrial development and expanding affordable access to population.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy, Alfredo Nampete, who chaired the opening assignment of the two-day regional gathering in the capital, maputo on Wednesda said the RIDMP found that some SADC countries are still falling short of levels achieved by other regional blocs on the continent, regarding universal access to electricity.
Nampete also said that another identified aspect is that the SADC region is still below the levels achieved by other regional blocs in terms of universal access to electricity.
“The solution to these challenges lies in strengthening regional cooperation, as the competitiveness of the region depends to a large extent on the pooling of efforts and sharing of resources available to each country in order to achieve comprehensive infrastructure development. SADC 2027 Vision-compliant structures, ”said the official.
Vision 2027, adopted during the 2012 SADC Summit in Maputo, enshrines the implementation of the Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP) over a 15-year horizon (2013-2027).
“Access to electricity, under reliable and affordable conditions, is key to boosting the region’s economic growth and achieving the transformation and social development of countries as a result of value-added benefits, which means leveraging electricity resources through integration and looking beyond the capabilities of each country” said the source.
The Permanent Secretary pointed out, by way of example that, by recognizing the pertinence of regulatory action, the country has transformed the National Electricity Council, with merely advisory and recommending functions, for energy regulatory authority and actions are underway aiming at the implementation of the its operating structure.
Structural changes, according to Nampete, aim to ensure that it can play its crucial role in creating a regulatory environment conducive to attracting investment and increasingly efficient functioning of the energy market.
In fact, the consummation of this goal will allow the harmonization of existing legislation to attract more investment.
That is, if an investor wishes to invest in Mozambique in the energy sector, he must meet the same conditions and requirements as any other country in the region.
The Maputo seminar is basically the continuation of the study to assess the possibility of establishing in the SADC region an energy regulator of the region, similarly to the regulators of West and Central Africa, in the US as well as in Europe.
Guilherme Mavila, chairman of RERA’s Board of Directors in Mozambique, said that the emergence of the regional level regulatory authority does not nullify the existence of national regulators.
CM/as/APA