Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), a pressure group, has backed the decision of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to suspend its sitting on the board of the Public Utilities and Regulatory Commission (PURC).
It said the TUC has the right to suspend its representation on the board to avoid a decision that would compromise or conflict with its intended strike action on November 18th.
AFAG hinted that it would be astounded if TUC reneges on its promise.
Kofi Asamoah, General Secretary of the TUC recently at a news conference, gave the PURC and the government a 10-day ultimatum to slash the tariff increases by one-third.
Subsequently, TUC, in a letter to the PURC, argued that it could not continue to be part of the meetings of the Commission, whose decisions membership of the TUC is against in terms of recent tariff increases by the PURC.
AFAG, in a statement issued in Accra yesterday, fully endorsed the wise actions taken by the TUC on behalf of the suffering working class of Ghana to suspend its representation on the board of PURC.
It reminded the TUC that the majority of Ghanaians stand by their actions as a matter of principle.
“AFAG differs with the TUC on its incremental position to utility tariff adjustments; however we wholly support the stand of labour to resist the recently announced tariff adjustments by the PURC,” it said, maintaining that the tariff adjustments lacked merit vis-à-vis value for money with respect to utility service provision in the country.
While appealing to God to save Ghana, it stated that the PURC’s recent action could be likened to merely committing economic crimes against Ghanaians.
In the view of the pressure group, utilities like the ECG, has been ineffective, but the PURC deemed it prudent to sanction sudden astronomical increases in utility tariffs.
“The PURC must be up and doing and better depart from the rhetoric of being autonomous whilst they are continuously being whipped into action by the stretch of hidden forces,” AFAG claimed.
If PURC was indeed autonomous, it would never have rewarded the grossly incompetent Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) with such an astronomical increase in tariff adjustment, AFAG intimated, adding that “we call on all citizens as a matter of principle to stand solidly behind the TUC in this all-time fight for survival.”
