ECG calls for increment in utility tariffs
- Electricity Company of Ghana wants parliament to approve power tariff increment
- The increase would enable the ECG recover loses incurred earlier in the year 2018
The Chairman of Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, Emmanuel Akwasi Gyamfi, on behalf of the Electricity Company of Ghana, has called on parliament to approve the increment in end-user tariffs of at least 37.6 per cent.
Gyamfi explained that ECG wants a tariff increase that will cover the losses it was incurring from selling electricity at 42.89 pesewas per kilowatt hour when it is buying that power from VRA and IPPs at a (weighted) average cost of 59 pesewas per kW/h.
He was responding to allegations by the minority in Parliament that an unauthorized increase in tariffs had been affected since the middle of this year.
Source: UGC
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The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) is currently reviewing agreed 2019 utility tariffs, which would be announced on December 9.
The review process included power generators like Volta River Authority and the several Independent Power Producers; transmission company, GRIDCo; and distribution companies, ECG and the Northern Electricity Department.
These companies were engaged to enable them present their proposals for the level of tariffs they want to be imposed for 2019.
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Gyamfi said Ghana’s business community and households would have to brace themselves to pay an increased amount for utilities especially after they welcomed the reduction in electricity which was effective from April this year.
Those reductions, he said saw tariffs payable by businesses reduced by 30 percent, while household consumers had benefitted from a 17.5 percent tariff cut.
The special load tariff was reduced by 25 percent while the tariff charged on mines was slashed by 10 percent.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
