President John Dramani Mahama has attributed the increase in electricity tariff to illegal connections in the country.

According to him, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) accounts and pays for power that is lost through theft.

This, according to him, forces ECG to increase the tariff in order to recover money to pay Volta River Authority (VRA) and other power producers in the country.

President Mahama, who made this known at the inauguration of IMES, a Ghanaian-owed meter assembling company said, “One of the problems that the ECG faces is the issue of loss of power through power theft. This account for the bulk of the power losses and ECG has to pay for them because they are not producing the power.

“So for every person who steals power makes it more expensive for those of us paying and that is why our tariffs are high,” he added.

The president said electricity tariff would go down if everyone pays for the power used, urging Ghanaians to report the perpetrators to curb the menace.

He noted that the introduction of the intelligent meters by IMES Ghana was critical to sustaining power generation and addressing the issue of power losses through theft which is a major challenge for the ECG.

This, he said, would be done by preventing the tampering of meters, as well as making the use of meters easier for consumers of power.

Dr. Kwabena Donkor, Minister of Power said, “The local content policy does not end at just the utilization of Ghanaian human capital but goes further to include local participation in equity holding.

“Ghana will not just become an assembling nation, but it will become a country where citizens fully participate in equity ownership of enterprises,” he stated.