The public utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) will on January 1, 2015 announce new utility tariffs for consumers of electricity and water in the country.
��Within this crisis situation, you cannot do any high increases; for instance, the second quarter, we did our calculation, the exchange rate had gone up to 35%, but when we looked at the load shedding and everything, we said no, we cannot past on 35% to the consumer so we settled at a certain figure which was lower.�
According to her, �with the situation that we are in, it is not stable now so you cannot measure efficiency now, you only can measure efficiency in a very stable environment where there is adequate generation, where there is electricity. But as it stands now, we are in crisis. We don�t have adequate generation.�
She made this known during an interaction with a section of the media on Friday in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital.
According to her, the review of the utility tariffs is in line with the Automatic Adjustment Formula with the objective of reviewing quarterly electricity and water tariffs to reflect changes in factors that affected the operations of utility service providers.
She stated that the volatility in the spot price of light crude oil on the international market, erratic nature of natural gas suppliers, and other key components, including the operation and maintenance cost, material costs, Cedi/Dollar exchange rate, fuel cost, variation power purchase cost for IPPs, variation in generation mix, energy cost, water treatment chemical costs and CPI inflationary trends as factors that input the adjustment of utility tariffs.
Currently natural gas has started flowing from the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant, Powering some thermal plants in the country.
Also, significantly ice at the world market has reduced significantly.
Therefore many Ghanaians are of the view that, utility tariffs must either be reduced or remain same. The PURC in the fourth quarter of the year 2014 increased Electricity and Water Tariffs by 6.54% and 4.54% and 4.54% respectively.
However, she added that, because of the poor quality of water service delivery being churned out by the Ghana Water Company, the Commission has decided not to pass on the Tariff for water until such a time that certain Regulatory requirements that protect the consumer are met.
The increment raised public outcry due to poor service delivery by the utility providers. Currently, the country is faced with erratic power supply affecting both domestic and industrial consumers.
<<Print>>