Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday, May 26, 2016
New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential
candidate for the 2016 elections, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has promised to
reduce the killer electricity tariffs (light bills) if Ghanaians give him the
mandate to become president in the November polls.
High electricity bills which have been justified by the Petroleum
Minister, Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah, are collapsing businesses and causing
public anger against the Mahama administration, making the government very
unpopular.
The minister asked
Nana Akufo-Addo to tell Ghanaians what he could do differently to reduce
electricity tariffs when given the mandate to govern the country.
Nana Akufo-Addo believes that the several
taxes imposed on electricity consumers are the major cause of the public
agitations, and has called on the government to scrap them or reduce them to
bring relief to the people.
After first calling on the
authorities to reduce the killer light bills yesterday, Nana Akufo-Addo told DAILY
GUIDE exclusively that “If the government cannot or will not listen to
the calls for the reduction of electricity tariffs, it is important for the
people of Ghana to know that God-willing, if I win the election later this
year, I definitely will. I will definitely reduce electricity tariffs.”
Killer Tariffs
The PURC increased electricity
tariffs by 59.2 % for residential consumers effective December 14 last year;
but it is turning out that many consumers are being charged monstrous rates,
with some believed to be going as high as about 300%, leading to public outcry.
Currently, more than 62% of complaints
received by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) in the first
quarter of 2016 were on overbilling as compared to the previous year’s 18%. And
Customer Billing Data shows clearly that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)
is having challenges with the migration of customer information from the old billing
system to the new billing software.
As a result, the PURC has
ordered that ECG to suspend the use of the controversial software until things
are normalised.
The NDC propagandists are
blaming the ECG staff for deliberately fiddling with the process in order to
turn public anger against the government.
Ironically, President John
Mahama recently beat his chest that he had succeeded in allowing the ECG to
have a clean balance sheet with the astronomical increment. The president said Ghanaians should be prepared
to pay more for the enjoyment of constant electricity supply; yet with the
tariff hikes, there seems to be shortage in supply as dumsor is still living
with consumers.
Nana Bombarded
On his recent tour of the
country, Nana Akufo-Addo and his entourage were continuously bombarded with
outrageous electricity bills by Ghanaians.
When he visited South Africa
recently, the NPP flagbearer pointed out that the mismanagement of the economy
had reached a point where rent was even less expensive than electricity bills.
“Can you believe that today in
Ghana, for the ordinary Ghanaian, the cost of electricity is more than the cost
of their rent? So forget even ‘dumsor,’ it is now ‘yɛnnsor,’ because you can’t afford
to pay. That is where we are,” he had lamented.
Build-up Taxes
Nana Addo told DAILY
GUIDE that a large part of the tariff increases is due to the build-up
of taxes, including 10% energy levy which is charged for both domestic and
commercial uses, a service charge of GH¢7 flat rate for every consumer and a Value
Added Tax (VAT) of 17½% for commercial users.
Nana Akufo-Addo believes these
taxes can be significantly reduced, which will in turn bring down electricity
tariffs.
“I believe all of these figures
can be significantly reduced to be able to bring the electricity tariff system
in our country to a much more competitive relationship with that of our neighbours
and what is going on in the region,” he sounded optimistic.
According to the NPP flagbearer,
“It is important for us to recognise in Ghana that whatever we are doing, we
are doing so in a globally competitive context; and if we don’t recognise that,
many of the decisions we make about the management of our economy are going to
put us at a disadvantage from the word go.”
Foreign Rates
Citing the prices of the wide
disparity in electricity rates being charged domestic and industry users in
Ghana as opposed to the charges in Cote d’Ivoire - a country which until six
years ago was ravaged by civil war - Nana Akufo-Addo stressed that the tariff
system in Ghana is putting Ghanaian enterprises in a very uncompetitive
comparison.
“In Ghana, my understanding is
that the tariff for commercial users is 32 US cents/kilowatt hour. The Ivorian
equivalent is 13 US cents/kilowatt hour. Again, for domestic users, we are
talking about 19.28 US cents/kilowatt hour, when Cote d’Ivoire equivalent is a
tariff of 9 US cents/kilowatt hour,” he said.
Suffering Industries
Nana lamented, “So you put these
things together, and already Ghanaian industry and economic activities are
suffering unnecessarily.”
In the statement he released on
Tuesday calling for a reduction, Nana Akufo-Addo said, “I have taken notice of
today’s statement made by the PURC that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)
should suspend its billing system. I think the matter is more fundamental and
should go further than that.”
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