The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has served notice to utility companies it will not accept a 100 percent increase in utility tariffs under the current economic conditions.
Speaking to the Business Day after a stakeholder consultative meeting with the labour unions organized by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), the Secretary General of the TUC Mr. Kofi Asamoah stated that there is a limit to what workers can afford in the current economic conditions.
“The figures they are giving us are just not acceptable, we will digest the issue and make a formal presentation to them”, he said adding that “a review of 100 percent at a go is impossible due to the cost of living”.
Mr. Asamoah, however, counseled utility companies to look at what will be within the means of Ghanaians to avert overburdening the ordinary Ghanaian worker.
He also called for a justification in the proposed tariff increase since previous surges have not translated into quality of service.
The utility companies, who went through presentations to outline their cases to the TUC pointed out that the nation risks losing its utility companies to bankruptcy if the tariff regime is not adjusted to conform to the rising cost in production.
The Volta River Authority (VRA), which complained of high cost in production due to the cedi depreciation demanded an increase in tariff from 14 pesewas per kilowatts of electricity to 30 pesewas per kilowatts.
“Our input cost is made up of imported items like fuel and equipment which we buy in dollars, if we do not increase the tariff the power sector will grind to a halt” Director in charge of Planning and Business Development at VRA, Mr. Kofi Ellis said.
He stated that the need to increase the tariff cannot be dropped since the demand for electricity keeps increasing by over 800,000 connections to the national grade annually.
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) on their part proposed an increment from 16.46 pesewas per kWH to 35.51 pesewas per kWH.
The Commercial Manager at the Ghana Water Company, Mr. Kenneth Enning also stated that the company wants to increase its tariff from 16.5 pesewas per unit to 35 pesewas per unit of water provided.
