By Eric Appah Marfo
Accra, Aug.22, GNA—Mr Kofi Kapito, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), has urged utility service providers to improve their services to match up with the recent increase in utility tariffs.
“The utility tariffs have come to stay but if consumers are going to pay, what we are also demanding is an improvement in service delivery. The utility service providers should improve their services to meet the best international standards.
“In Europe, nobody talks about lights out. The weather never affects services there but over here, the least rainfall or change in weather causes interruptions. These are the challenges affecting the Ghanaian consumer. If their services are uninterrupted, then it is okay to pay. Our stand as CPA is that if these tariffs have come to stay, then they should match up with the services being offered us,” he said.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Monday, the CEO lauded the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) for coming out with a double-digit tariff instead of the proposed triple digit tariff from the utility service providers.
He said his outfit would keep an eye on the PURC to ensure that they honoured their promise of ensuring utility services were improved.
Mr Kapito also advised the Commission to improve its visibility to the public so that complaints could be brought before them.
He called on Government to increase salaries to give citizens the financial muscle to afford the tariff increments and advised Ghanaians to be measured in the use of domestic utilities.
Ghanaians will from September 1, 2022, pay more for the consumption of water and electricity.
This comes after the approval of a 27.15 per cent tariff for water and 21.55 per cent for electricity by the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PUCR) for the 2022-2025 major tariff review.
This means that lifeline residential electricity consumers (0-30 kilowatt per hour) will now pay 41.90 pesewas instead of the earlier 36.20 pesewas.
All other residential consumers will pay a tariff between 89.04 pesewas per kWh hour and 128.39 pesewas per kWh.
For businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises that consume electricity of 0-300kWh will pay 83.78, with those consuming electricity between 300kWh to 600kWh and above paying 89.15 to 133.09 pesewas.
Residential consumers of water will pay a new tariff of 4.0 pesewas per metric tonne (from the earlier 3.29 pesewas p) while non-residential consumers will pay 11.21 pesewas. Commercial users will pay between 15 and 49 pesewas per month.
All the service providers had asked for increment in tariff for the 2022-2025 tariff review. The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) had asked for an increase in water tariff of 334 per cent, while the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) requested for a 148 per cent increase in tariffs for 2022.
The Volta River Authority (VRA) proposed a tariff increase of 37 per cent, Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), 113 percent, and Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), 48 per cent increase in transmission charge.
The tariff review process started with the receipt of proposals from the following Utility Service Providers, and a proposal from Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) in respect of projected natural gas volumes and tariffs by gas supply sources.
The PURC then had extensive stakeholder consultations, which afforded the utility service providers the opportunity to explain their proposals to the public and key interest groups such as the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
This was followed by rigorous analyses, intense debates, and further extensive consultations before the tariff decisions for the period 2022-2025 were accepted.
The last major review of tariffs was done in 2018, which resulted in a 17.5 per cent reduction for residential and 30 per cent for non-residential in electricity tariff.
GNA