Page 500 - 2016 - Vol. 40

and money on these bids. Also, some African countries place
bureaucratic procurements & hiring procedures that hamper the
operations of private energy companies .(20)

Concerning tariffs, some countries set them at very high
rates making it very unattractive to investors; as they may
not have the chance to recover the incurred costs in the future
.(21) Another major risk is the stalling of utilities contracts;
circumstances may change during the lifetime of a project in
many SSA countries, and these essential services may stop.
Also, there is a risk arises when regulatory agencies start to
interfere with the private company’s operations. Similarly, there
is the risk of Nationalization, expropriation, and policy changes.
Furthermore, disharmonized regional regulatory frameworks
pose problems for renewable energy projects that work across
borders .(22)

As for capacity problems, many African countries suffer
from weak institutional capacity; most public officials lack skills
to manage Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), and most local
judicial systems do not have the capacity to handle complex
contracts or disputes in energy infrastructure field .(23) In some
countries, there are multiple government bodies dealing with
the energy sector; thus leading to discord and replication of
functions. Also, a lot of African countries don’t have suitable
measures to tackle energy capacity problems (24) and funding
gap(25). Another capacity problem faced by private investors
is the lack of long-term planning and coordination among
ministries and different bodies dealing with energy .(26)

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