Cut tariffs further – CPP to gov’t

Government must cut utility tariffs significantly rather than the 7% per cent reduction in electricity tariffs as announced by Organised Labour’s Abraham Koomson, the Convention People’s Party (CPP) has said.

Mr Koomson told Richard Sky on Citi FM’s Eyewitness on Tuesday that government has agreed to reduce by 7% the recently announced 59.2% increase in power tariffs.

General Secretary of the CPP, Nii Armah Akomfrah he is not impressed with the reduction and has accused state utilities regulator, Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), of embarking on “secret” tariff increases as an additional 10% increment was introduced on electricity, effective January 1, 2016, without prior information of the public.

The PURC announced the upward tariff adjustment late last year. A letter directing the Electricity Company of Ghana to charge an additional 10% later surfaced.

Organised Labour had demanded that the increase be reduced to 50% for both power (59.2%) and water (67.2%).

The compromise was reached on Tuesday January 26 after a meeting between the two parties.

But Mr Akomfrah told Ekow Mensah-Shalders on Class91.3fm’s Executive Breakfast Show that the “reduction is not enough.”

“It is simply laughable considering the hardship of Ghanaians. So, for me, the PURC is now becoming a gimmick and indeed government, in the recent handling of the electricity tariff rises, has been shameful.”

On the other 10% upward adjustment, he said: “We have had a situation between Christmas and January, a law has been enacted and the effect has not been explained to anybody. So, a near 60 per cent rise and people are experiencing a different rise at their door or within their houses, and then we are actually told it is because of the law. Are we now going to be subjected to tariff rises, which are secretive? Government should also be ashamed of themselves.”