The Chief Executive Officer of the Consumer Protection Agency, Kofi Kapito, has questioned why the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) allowed the increase in electricity tariffs despite the inefficiencies in the system and poor quality of service.
The PURC will from Wednesday, October 1, 2014 increase electricity tariff by about 6.54 percent and water, 4.54 percent.
According to the PURC, the increment on water will not be passed on to the consumer because of poor quality service delivery by the Ghana Water company.
[contextly_sidebar id=”E3ereS2SzCiNy22A7x0Fbdv2ecOH2iXN”]Speaking on Eye Witness News on Tuesday, Mr Kapito questioned the rationale behind the PURC’s directive.
“I am a little surprised that if the PURC can go to the extent that because of the inefficiencies of the Ghana water they are going to pass on the increase to the consumers. Then why pass on the electricity to consumers?” he asked.
Although he agreed that Ghana was facing some challenges in its power sector, Kofi Kapito said: “I don’t accept the fact that the crude oil is the problem. I am not saying we are not buying crude oil, but by their [PURC] own explanation, we are now dependent on mainly the gas supply and that is what is affecting us.”
“That is why if Asogli is off and the other plants that uses the gas goes out, we go through this emergency load shedding,” he noted.
Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer for the PURC, Nana Yaa Gyantuah who spoke to Citi News earlier, blamed the problem on the country’s dependence on crude oil to power its thermal plants, explaining that “crude oil is a very expensive fuel.”
“If we had gas in abundance or we had gas at the limit that we want for all the thermal plants we wouldn’t have any situation but fundamentally what the problem is, is that there is an inadequacy of generation. That is when you see some of these challenges,” she said.
She added that “we pray that the gas at Atuabo that is going to generate electricity at Aboadze comes through the pipeline for us and once it comes through the pipeline then there will be adequate generation and at the end of the day some of these challenges would be forestalled.”
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana