Tariff hike: Minority being inconsistent – Duker

The Minority in Parliament are being inconsistent in their stance with regards to the increment in electricity tariffs in the country, George Mireku Duker, the Member of Parliament for Tarkwa-Nsuaem Constituency in the Western Region has said.

Mr Duker explained on the Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM on Thursday, 3 October 2019, that when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration reduced electricity tariffs after assuming office in 2017, the Minority complained and questioned that decision and further said the reduction was unrealistic.

He, therefore, finds it surprising that the Minority will criticise the government after the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced an increment in electricity tariffs on Tuesday, 1 October 2019.

Mr Duker said: “One of the first things this government did when it assumed power was to reduce electricity tariffs. There was 30 per cent reduction for commercial and then 17.5 per cent for residential. I remember when this was done, the Minority accused the government of playing politics with it and that the reduction was not sustainable.

“But today, when there has been, if you like, a marginal increment, they turn around to accuse the government of being insensitive.”

“Ofcourse we do know that nobody enjoys high tariffs. People need low tariffs in order to carry out their work but we also need to be realistic in some decisions that we take. When the NDC was in power we were paying so much even under ‘dumsor’ but today, we’ve no ‘dumsor’ and they are complaining?” he quizzed.

PURC announced a 5.6 per cent increase in electricity tariffs on Monday 30 September 2019, leading to claims by the opposition that Government had mismanaged the electricity sector, hence the “unprecedented” increase.

Ranking Member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, Mr Adam Mutawakilu called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to apologise to Ghanaians for increasing water and electricity tariffs.

The Damongo MP told Class 91.3FM in an interview that: “How can you give these flimsy reasons for the adjustments? If you take the reasons they gave, rather you should have reductions, not an increase”.

“President Nana Akufo-Addo is hypocritical; he never says the truth, he says A and going B. We expect him to apologise to the people of Ghana that he misled them and painted President Mahama black by saying that under President Mahama, rent was lower than electricity.”