Electricity tariffs paid by Ghanaians 'woefully inadequate' to sustain ECG - Fritz Moses

Moses says tariffs must be increased to keep ECG in business

Inadequate tariff a factor for current outages - Fritz Moses

We do not have enough power - IES research analyst

A Research Analyst at the Institute of Energy Security (IES), Fritz Moses, has stated that the current tariffs being paid by Ghanaians are not enough to sustain Ghana’s electricity production and distribution.

According to Fritz Moses, the inadequate tariffs paid by Ghanaians in addition to the country’s insufficient buffer and system losses are part of the causes of the recent power outages, citinewroom.com reports.

He indicated that electricity tariffs must be increased to raise enough revenue to ensure that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCO) and Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) stay in business.

“The amount of money we pay for power in this country is woefully inadequate to sustain the operations of ECG, NEDCO and GRIDCo.

“We do not have enough power. We may get to a position where without additional power, we may not be able to meet the entire generation needs of the country. If you are able to cut down on all these impediments, then we can generate more power,” Fritz Moses is quoted to have said.

Meanwhile, former power minister, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, has warned that Ghana might soon return to the days of “dumsor” if urgent steps are not taken by the government.

Dr. Donkor said that the crisis might resurface again because the current government has not added significantly to the country’s energy generation capacity even though the demand for electricity keeps on increasing significantly.

The former power minister, who said this at a press conference in Accra, urged the government to put in measures to greatly increase Ghana’s generation capacity within the next two years to avert a looming power crisis.

The government has, however, insisted that there is no way the country will be returning to the era of erratic power supply saying that current power outages are a result of maintenance works.

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