The proposal by the Electricity Company of Ghana to increase tariffs has been kicked against by a former Ranking Member of the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, Mutawakilu Adam.
According to him, the ECG has not demonstrated enough capacity to effectively manage its resources and so it is not justified that it wants to, at this time, effect increases to its tariffs, reports citinewsroom.com.
The former Member of Parliament for Damongo stressed that it becomes undeserving for the ECG to be seeking such a move when it is not even unable to prove how it is tackling the about 25% losses it suffers to technical and commercial issues.
“How much of our monies is being lost? If that is not tackled, then we are wasting our time on this. They are just taking money from Ghanaians and wasting it. Technical and commercial losses alone is over 25% and that means that for every 100 million that ECG is expected to collect, they can’t account for 25 million of it. So, if we only concentrate on increasing tariff without reducing technical and commercial losses, we will come back to square one,” he said.
The former lawmaker said that there was a good chance for the government to deal with the inefficiencies leading to losses that were generated by the ECG when it suffered through the PDS deal but it “messed it up.”
Mutawakilu Adam said the deal was to ensure that the ECG’s infrastructure is improved and service delivery made better, although this did not happen.
This, he added, is therefore unfair to want to make consumers pay more for power when they do not enjoy equally improved services.
“Should the consumer always be the punching bag? I have not seen how previous increments have helped reduce the technical and commercial losses,” he noted.
Earlier, Kwame Agyeman-Budu, the Managing Director of the ECG had said at a public forum on Thursday, April 8, 2021, that to improve its service, his outfit needs more resources.
According to him, while he is aware that the proposal will only materialize after approval from the Public Utilities and Regulatory Commission (PURC), he is of the firm belief that it is critical for ECG to have access to more funds to enable it to operate efficiently.
“We need money to do it [improve]. If we get the increase, we will love it [but] that will be up to the PURC because, no matter what we propose, they will ultimately decide.
“In terms of distribution, we need support, because we have to do upgrades to make sure the system is sustainable. We don’t wait till something is broken before we fix it. We need additional funds to upgrade our systems at all times,” he stated.
Matawakilu Adam is former MP for Damongo