Thursday 28th of March 2024 Sahafi.jo | Ammanxchange.com
  • Last Update
    26-Aug-2016

Good scenarios that can happen - Editorial, The Jordan Times

 

 

The Jordan Strategy Forum has come up with three proposals to help circumvent the unpopular decision to increase electricity tariffs, “scenarios” which, if adopted “would boost the economic growth and reduce the Kingdom’s imports of energy”.
The government is carrying the big financial burden of subsidising electricity prices to various users, and that cannot be unsustainable for much longer given the fact that the country depends for up to 97 per cent of its needs on imported energy sources, which has made the national energy bill reach JD4.48 billion, or about 17.3 per cent of the GDP annually.
The national Electricity Power Company ran last year a debt exceeding JD4.5 billion due to price subsidies to consumers of various categories.
This reality obviously calls for a new, and bold, strategy that deals with the energy crisis once and for all, and that is what the strategy forum has just come up with.
One suggested solution is to have big consumers — banks, telecom industries and mining companies —shift to renewable sources of energy instead of relying on subsidies electricity.
That should be beneficial to these consumers that, in the long run, will have energy at nominal prices to the country’s budget and to the environment. 
A triple bonus that nobody can quarrel with.
Another proposed scenario is to offer no subsidies to household consumers that consume more than 600kWh per month, considering that they are in a position to bear the additional cost.
The cost of subsidising this bracket of the society is estimated at JD40 million a year. 
The sum is large, no doubt, and the estimated extra cost they would incur would be about JD22.
It may make a difference to someone already paying quite a large electricity bill, but if it is for the good of the country, so be it.
The third solution is to channel subsidies granted to agricultural consumers and hotels towards generating electricity from renewable energy systems.
In five years’ time, the thinking goes, these consumers will be able to generate their own energy and the government will lift the subsidies.
Theses are both practical and necessary ideas.
The current energy policy is not sustainable and since something has to be done about it, why not take these solutions seriously?
If in time things need adjustment, that should be allowed and encouraged.
The strategy forum deserves to be commended for coming up with doable solutions. One hopes they will not be shelved and forgotten, but considered in earnest and implemented.
 

Latest News

 

Most Read Articles