Sachet water price increased to 25 pesewas

A single sachet water will now sell at 25 Ghana pesewas effective Monday June 1, 2015.

That's according to the Sachet and Packaged Water Producers Association, which had informed Ghanaians of a planned increase last week.

Per the increase, a bag of sachet water from a factory goes for 2.70 pesewas.

The increase comes at a time when Ghanaians have had to deal with a recent 9% hike in fuel prices, which many have described as ill-timed and insensitive of the government.

Stakeholders in the transport sector are also preparing to announce new transport fares this June.

Producers of the sachet water popularly referred to as 'pure water' say the cost of production has automatically gone up with the latest upward adjustment in fuel prices, and so the product cannot be sold at the same cost.

The current power crisis they say is also taking a toll on their operations as they spend more on fuel to power their plants for production.

The President of the Sachet and Packaged Water Producers Association, Magnus Nuoo, in an earlier interview with TV3, said the increase was not going to be hard considering the prevailing difficult economic conditions.

"Obviously, price changes don't come comfortably to the consumer and moreover everybody falls within that bracket. It is not our making; it is the economic conditions of the day that is dictating what we are expected to do. We are sorry the consumer may have to tighten up a little bit and bear with us., We are better off recovering and breaking even than collapsing".

Confirming the new price of 25 pesewas on Monday June 1, Mr. Magnus Nuoo said, "Now it's going for 25 pesewas from today".

He disagreed with suggestions that the 25 pesewas increase may only be a strategy since it is likely to be sold at 30 pesewas due to the limited circulation of the 5pesewas coin.

No; we have been there before so it's nothing new. We were ten and then we went to fifteen and it worked. So what shows that from 15 to 25 it is not going to work? The market then demanded more of the five pesewas so probably they released more into the system and it started working. So I believe that indirectly or coincidentally we are going to force the Bank of Ghana to release more of the coins because it is still a legal tender".

Last year February, the price of sachet water was increased by nearly 50 percent. By that increase, consumers were to pay 15 pesewas for a single sachet but that automatically became 20pesewas because of the limited circulation of the 5pesewas coin.

However in most parts of rural Ghana, the product is still sold for 10 pesewas.

Last year's increase among other economic indicators, was also as a result of a 10% environmental tax on plastics introduced by Parliament in 2013.