Authority reflects on journey to date
The Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA) is pleased with the progress it has made since its establishment in September 2017.
Addressing stakeholders during BERA’s Strategy Review retreat held in Kasane last week, the authority’s CEO, Rose Nunu Seretse declared that the enterprise has achieved much in its two-and-a-half years of existence.
BERA, whose headquarters are in Lobatse, is responsible for providing an efficient energy regulatory framework for electricity, gas, coal, petroleum products and all forms of renewable energy.
Seretse revealed BERA’s inspections have uncovered, amongst others, illegal exportation of fuel, lack of quality assurance and lack of adherence to environmental issues.
“We have also established lack of capacity building of employees particularly of the filling stations. The authority has also managed to conduct tariffs reviews for Botswana Power Corporation (BPC),” announced the CEO, adding they have been monitoring international petroleum market trends to determine whether there is need to adjust fuel prices locally or not.
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Seretse further announced the authority have developed key performance indicators for BPC and are currently consulting the corporation on this.
She concluded by revealing BERA has also developed a programme to monitor, rate and reward performance of filling stations.
For his part, Assistant Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology Machana Ronald Shamukuni praised BERA for the huge strides it has made in a short space if time.
“It inspected 140 facilities and only 59 were found to be compliant while the rest were not. In addition it has been reviewing electricity tariffs and assessing fuel pump prices in relation to international markets and trends,” reiterated Shamukuni.
He encouraged BERA to create an enabling regulatory environment to stimulate private sector participation in renewable and cleaner energy sources.