Analyst: Increasing tariff is heartless

The Chief Executive of the African Institute of Energy and Sustainability (AIES), Dr Samiu Kwadwo Nuamah, has condemned authorities for increasing electricity and water tariffs in the midst of the current energy crisis.

“I think that in this current situation, it will take a heartless person to actually request for more, because there is something called value for money. Where is the value before requesting for more money?” he asked.

The energy expert believes Ghanaians “should be enjoying more value before you ask for more and, in that situation, I am sure many people will be willing to pay.”

Dr Nuamah said energy is a resource which drives businesses and other money-generating ventures to flourish for people to gain more revenue and "no good government will try to overburden it's people".

To him, “nothing works in the absence of energy” and he feels the current energy crisis has crippled Ghanaian businesses, leading to less income and so stakeholders should not overburden citizens with additional increases in utility tariffs.

“When there is energy, people make more money, companies do well, they employ a lot of people, people get more money in their pockets. So when you request for more tariffs people will not hesitate. But in this current situation, when companies are struggling to get power for their machinery etc.?” he asked.

Dr Nuamah said that energy is the driving force of every economy and charged the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) to “cut the rhetoric and do more work to address the energy situation.”

“To move the economy forward, you need to ensure availability of power. It is core. In the absence of that everything collapses and that is exactly where we find ourselves, so, government should step in,” he said in an interview on Citi FM’s news analysis programme ‘The Big Issue’ on Saturday December 12, 2015.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), Kofi Capito, has expressed disappointment in the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) for allowing the tariff hikes of 59.2% and 67.2% for electricity and water, respectively.

He has, therefore, filed a suit against the PURC, Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana Grid Company Ltd (GridCo), and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), seeking to restrain them from implementing the recent upward tariff adjustment as far as power is concerned.