By thefourlens.com
Wednesday, February 01, 2023
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced on Monday, January 16, 2023 to increase utility tariffs.
The increment take effect today, Wednesday, February 01, 2023 despite admitting the present economic challenges.
While electricity has been increased by 29.96 percent, water has also seen an upward adjustment by 8.3 percent following the conclusion of the PURC’s regulatory processes for quarterly adjustments.
Justification
For the end-user electricity tariffs payable by consumers, the Commission considered four key factors in arriving at its decision.
These were the Ghana Cedi/US Dollar exchange rate, inflation, generation mix and the weighted average cost of natural gas.
“Since the announcement of the major tariff in August 2022, these key variables underlying the rate setting have changed significantly. For example, the weighted average Ghana Cedi/Dollar exchange rate used for the major tariff review was GHS 7.5165 to the US Dollar. Since then, we have witnessed the depreciation of life Cedi against the US Dollar and other major currencies. The projected weighted average Ghana Cedi US Dollar exchange rate used in First Quarter 2023 Tariff Analysis is GHS10.5421/USD”, PURC stressed.
Additionally, the weighted average inflation figure used for the major tariff has seen a four-fold increase.
Together with exchange rate movements, this has negatively affected the ability of the utilities to purchase critical inputs required for their operations.
The Commission used a projected inflation rate of 42.63% in its tariff analysis for the First Quarter of 2023.
“The combined effect of the Cedi/US Dollar exchange rate, inflation and WACOG is that the utility companies are significantly under-recovering and require an upward adjustment of their tariffs in order to keep the lights on and water flowing”, the statement added.
Public response
Some Ghanaians who shared their concerns with thefourlens.com lamented the system is not favoring the youth and ordinary Ghanaians.
Saying, the implication of this increment is “increasing the hardship in the system and putting the ordinary Ghanaian at a very tight corner to sweat more”.
A seamstress apprentice, Mary Gati worried that sewing thread, lining and other petty-petty materials needed to help them learn is at a very high cost now and they can’t buy.
“We can’t buy them this days, look at this, this is caliko, it was GHc7 per yard in somewhere last year but today-today-today is GHc18 per yard”, how, she quizzed.
“We only use it for album work but look at how costive it is now”, said said.Thefourlens.com
Writer’s email: ttchrietoph1@gmail.com
