8% hike in water tariff disappointing – Ghana Water Company

The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is unhappy about the approval of 8 percent in water tariff by the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC).

The PURC has announced an 8% increase in water tariff and 11% increase in electricity tariff despite the opposition from the public and the Minority in Parliament.

The PURC said it considered the trend of inflation and fuel price hikes among others in reviewing the tariffs upwards.

But the Communications Manager of the Ghana Water Company Stanley Martey in an interview said the increment is insignificant to cover the cost of producing water.

“We requested for a higher percentage but then in their own wisdom and per their calculation, they feel the 8.01% may be adequate for our operations. Our major challenge is that we’ve had some decreases not long ago at a point where we were seriously hard up in our revenue because we had a lot of obligations that we needed to work on, but unfortunately we rather had a decrease. And so we were expecting that the last one would have been restored and then an increase is given. But unfortunately it hasn’t been restored and we’ve had a lower percentage as well and so it’s a major challenge to our operations.

He added: “Management is going to meet and strategize and see how best we can continue managing our operations because we were not expecting this much, we were expecting a better and higher percentage, unfortunately, this is what we have. So we just have to work with it because they are our regulators and in their own wisdom they think this is okay for our operations.”