We are overburdened with expenses - GWCL, ECG

ECG proposes 148% tariff increment

GWCL proposes a 344% tariff increment

Increase in production costs due to pollution, GWCL

The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have lamented the current hardship they are faced with as far as operational expenditures are concerned.

Manager in charge of corporate planning, monitoring, and evaluation of GWCL, Seth Atiapah, noted that the company proposed tariff increment due to the high cost of production due to pollution, maintenance, debt overhung, inflation, and depreciation of the cedi…

“People say they don’t do galamsey, but do you have a small factory, do you have a small workshop, what do you push into the water bodies? Your homes; where do you throw the water away? We are sensitizing you, so you desist from all these practices,” he said.

“If we continue to do it, the water we have extracted will become dirtier. We will require more money to treat it because we will buy more chemicals. And even in some cases, we have stopped treatment completely because the pollution in the water has made it untreatable”.

The ECG, during its latest review proposal to PURC, proposed a 148% increment in tariffs, while the GWCL proposed a 344% increment.

On the part of the general manager of the regulatory management of ECG, Sylvia Noshie, said, “ECG is currently a struggling distribution company that requires urgent support”, therefore the need for a full cost recovery tariff proposal.”

“If you consider the impact of the macroeconomic variables, what it means is that our inadequate distribution service charge has now diminished, it has dwindled… and this has impacted ECG’s operation. Now the prevailing tariffs as it stands now do not satisfy the cost of distribution these days,” as quoted by myjoyonline.com.

They made these statements at a public hearing held by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) in Ho.

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