Organised Labour has served notice of an imminent demonstration to stop the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) from implementing the last-quarter adjustments on electricity and water tariffs.
The Commission last Tuesday announced 6.54 and 4.54 percentage increases in electricity and water tariffs respectively though the tariff on water was suspended.
The Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) did not hide its disagreement over the increases, which were announced based on the Automatic Adjustment Formula.
In an interview with TV3’s Daniel Opoku yesterday, Secretary General of TUC Dr Kofi Asamoah, who also doubles as Spokesperson for Organised Labour, reiterated that the increases are “insensitive”.
“We are already reeling under very hard economic challenges,” Dr Asamoah said, “so, to add this thing to it was really unacceptable and an unwelcomed decision by PURC.”
He said Organised Labour will meet “this week” to decide on the way forward.
“Our meeting will be able to determine what exactly to do but definitely we will shout loud for government to hear because times are extremely hard and we don’t worsen it,” Dr Asamoah told our reporter.
“Government’s role is definitely to ensure that we have an improved lifestyle.”
One big increase
Organised Labour was instrumental in the implementation of the Formula for utility tariff reviews but Dr Asamoah said: “We are not talking about Automatic Adjustment in a vacuum.”
He explained that “when it was introduced, it was stopped from implementation. Then, along the lines for over two years, there was no increase and they came out with one big increase.”
He said what Organised Labour called for was an “Automatic Adjustment which leads to improved services by the provider.”
The back-and-forth over the implementation of the Formula led to the withdrawal of Organised Labour’s membership from PURC.
“Ever since we got out of the board, we have not gone back.”
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