The Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), has urged the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to reconsider its decision to increase utility tariffs.
Amoah made it clear that industry stakeholders will strongly oppose these hikes if the government does not reverse the decision.
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) recently announced a 14.75% rise in electricity tariffs for end-users, alongside a 4.02% increase in water tariffs across all consumer groups.
These changes come after the Commission’s regular tariff review process for the first and second quarters of 2025.
The PURC attributed the tariff adjustments to several factors, including fluctuations in the exchange rate between the Ghana cedi and the US dollar, inflation, the rising costs of fuel, particularly natural gas, and the current mix of hydro and thermal power generation.
However, Duncan Amoah, the Executive Secretary of COPEC, disagrees with the hikes, labeling them as unreasonable and unjustified.
“If you look at the circumstances surrounding the ECG, there are issues of accountability that render even public procurement processes and laws moot and ineffective. We have almost 2,000 containers unaccounted for, running into hundreds of millions of Cedis.
“Then, we turn back and claim we don’t have money, hence being unable to sustain operations. Therefore, we are raising tariffs. This doesn’t add up, and PURC needs to backtrack on the decision.”
Amoah further emphasized, “coming back to the consumer to insist we pay more, I can assure will be resisted fiercely.”
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