{"id":172555,"date":"2015-12-07T17:49:58","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T17:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=172555"},"modified":"2015-12-07T18:08:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T18:08:30","slug":"businesses-shocked-at-utility-price-hikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2015\/12\/businesses-shocked-at-utility-price-hikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Businesses shocked at utility price hikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) has described as shocking, the decision by the PURC to increase utility tariffs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The President of the Chamber, Seth Adjei Baah in an interview with <strong>Citi Business News<\/strong> said,\u00a0\u201cWe are shocked and surprised because as at now, most people are not breaking even and I know places people are contemplating shutting down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The PURC on Monday announced a 59.2 percent and 67.2 percent increase in the prices of water and electricity respectively.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This was however against a proposed increase of 128.6 percent by the ECG and a 400.2 percent increase by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;4NRepvrOdvZojYvWdKTkqtEN79rLneto&#8221;]Industry players and\u00a0the Trades Union Congress (TUC) had opposed the move saying it will be ill-timed\u00a0for the commission to increase utility prices without an improvement in the quality of service to consumers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mr. Adjei Baah also feared the move is likely to compel businesses to collapse. Already some companies have laid off workers as a result of\u00a0irregular power supply.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cTo raise electricity prices by over 50 percent and water by over 60 percent, tells us that we should stop doing manufacturing and fold our arms. It is quite unfortunate and we think it is indirectly collapsing our businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>PURC reasons unjustified<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">According to the PURC, it put into consideration a number of factors including cedi dollar exchange rate, growth in demand, consumer interest and availability of the service among others before going ahead with the increment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But Seth Adjei Baah insists the reasons notwithstanding, the move will make businesses noncompetitive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe are talking about consuming made in Ghana goods and it comes with prices; and these are the indications that are going to add up to the cost so that we do not become competitive. If that is happening, then we have a challenge on our\u00a0hands\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8211;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">By: Pius Amihere Eduku\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) has described as shocking, the decision by the PURC to increase utility tariffs. The President of the Chamber, Seth Adjei Baah in an interview with Citi Business News said,\u00a0\u201cWe are shocked and surprised because as at now, most people are not breaking even and I know places [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":172564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[21,4],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Businesses shocked at utility price hikes - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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