You Cannot Fool All The People All The Time...

The applause for organized labour and Government is still ringing loud over the reduction of electricity tariff by 25 percent. The reality however is that both sides have only conspired to postpone the hardship which was imposed on the population by the imposition of astronomical tariff increase. Organized labour demanded a staggering of the tariff increase and not a reduction in the level of tariff. Government partially agreed to the demand by allegedly reducing electricity tariffs by 25 percent and leaving tariffs where they have been. As a result both the TUC and the Government are looking good when indeed not much has changed. The policy of recovering cost of production which was embraced under the marching orders of the World Bank and International Monetary fund in 1983 has not changed. The real cause of high utility tariffs; inefficiency, corruption and a lopsided generation mix have not been addressed. The obvious lie, that the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) is an independent regulatory not subject to the decisions of Government continues to be perpetrated. And the game of equalization played by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) over matters of life and death for the Ghanaian population continues unabated. The announcement by Government raises other pertinent issues needing answers. When the PURC first announced the tariff increase of 78 percent for electricity to take effect from November 1, simple arithmetics revealed that the real level of increase was more than 300 percent. The question is what is the 25 percent reduction on? Is it the 78 percent increase or the 300 percent? When will the Government and organized labour tackle the real issues? Perhaps it is time to remind, Government, the opposition and organized labour that you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.