Ghanaians will have to brace themselves to pay more for water and electricity, beginning from today, Wednesday, February 1, 2023.
This comes after the January 16 increment announced by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) takes off.
Per the PURC’s increment, electricity tariff has gone up by 30% and water is going for 8.3% increment.
In its statement two weeks ago, the PURC cited the cedi depreciation, soaring inflation and issues with power generation as reasons for approving the increment.
“The PURC is equally mindful of the current difficult economic circumstances but notes that the potential for outages would be catastrophic for Ghana and has to be avoided. The PURC, therefore, sought to balance prevention of extended power outages and its deleterious implications on jobs and livelihoods with minimizing the impact of rate increases on consumers”.
“The Commission, therefore, decided to increase the average end-user tariff for electricity by 29.96% across the board for all consumer groups (Table i). The average end-user tariff for water has also been increased by 8.3% (Table 2). The Commission, however, approved varying rate adjustments including some reductions for selected industrial and commercial consumers as part of the ongoing restructuring of the existing water rate structure”, the statement added.
“The key objective of the tariff review was to sustain the financial viability of utility service providers as well as ensuring the delivery of quality service to consumers,” the Commission said.
ECG
A press release issued by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), on Tuesday, January 31, 2023, indicated the power distributor has already catalogued all unit consumption and the expected cost in a “Reckoner” which explains how the tariff is applied and billed.
“Please note that individual customers’ tariff percentage increase will depend on customer classification and consumption category. The Reckoner will be displayed at all our districts and customer service centres nationwide to guide customers on their electricity purchases.”
“ECG, by this announcement, assures our customers and stakeholders of our commitment to ensuring a smooth implementation of the new tariff.”
Currently, the ECG said it has established customer help desks in all districts and customer service centres to assist, explain and reconcile any challenge.
Source: Myxyzonline.com
Source:
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