Energy not wasted will not be paid for - Energy Commission

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), about a month ago, announced a 78.9% increment in electricity and 52% increment in water tariffs. The announcement has been met with outrage by civil society and other political parties.

The PURC announced the upward adjustment in electricity tariffs after a general consensus reached among stakeholders for the commission to grant tariff increases.


In June this year, the PURC reportedly met with representatives of four political parties (NDC, NPP, CPP and PNC) as part of its consultation process, but all the four kicked against the high tariff proposals by the utility companies, saying their arguments were not convincing enough for upward adjustments.


Consumers of electricity claim since the increment, prepaid meter charges have shot up quite significantly. According to some prepaid meter users, the only option left for them is to “waste energy since the amount paid to recharge the prepaid meters does not tally with the usage”.


In an interview with NEAT FM 100.9, the Executive Secretary of the Energy Commission, Dr. Alfred Ofosu Ahenkora, pleaded with consumers to “wisely” use energy.

He noted that, any attempt to waste energy will affect the country in some years to come. Adding that, “energy not wasted will not be paid for”.


“The energy that we save today will be of help to others in the future. Though we are not facing erratic power supply now, we are not out of the threat. If we continue to waste electricity now, it will come to a time we will have none to use.


“…Every year we have to add 250 megawatts of power to what we are using now in Ghana; so if we do not save energy now, it’s likely we will face the ‘dom sor dom sor’ (Erratic power supply) again. I am pleading with Ghanaians not to waste electricity,” he told NEAT FM’s political talk show host Adakabre Frimpong Manso.