The new tariffs, which take effect on February 1, 2023, will push electricity up by 29.96 per cent across the board for all customers, while water will increase by 8.3 per cent.
The commission, however, approved varying rate adjustments including some reductions for selected industrial and commercial consumers as part of the ongoing restructuring of the existing water rate structure.
A statement issued yesterday and signed by the Executive Secretary of the PURC, Dr Ishmael Ackah, said the new tariff review was occasioned by exchange rate volatility, rising inflation, generation mix and weighted average cost of natural gas.
This is the second time in six months that tariffs have been reviewed.
On September 1, 2022, the commission approved a 27.15 per cent increase in electricity and 21.55 per cent increase in water.
It was under a major tariff adjustment for the period.
Quarterly tariff review
The executive secretary said the new review was in conformity with the quarterly tariff review mechanism and guidelines as communicated in the Commission’s August, 2022 major tariff review decision.
He said the quarterly tariff review mechanism sought to track and incorporate changes in key factors used in determining natural gas, electricity and water tariffs.
He said the objective was to maintain the real value of the cost of supply of those utility services and ensure that utility companies did not under or over-recover.
According to him, under-recovery had negative implications for the ability of the companies to supply service to consumers, and had the potential of causing outages of electricity (DUMSOR) and reducing water supply.
He said that over-recovery unnecessarily overburdened consumers of electricity and water.
He added that the quarterly tariff review mechanism was meant to ensure that none of these happened
End-user electricity tariffs
Dr Ackah noted that for the end-user electricity tariffs payable by consumers, the commission considered four key factors in arriving at its decision.
He said those were the exchange rate, inflation, generation mix and the weighted average cost of natural gas.
average end-user tariff for water has also been increased by 8.3 per cent,” he added.
Reactions
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Mr Seth Twum-Akwaboah, expressed dissatisfaction of industry over the new tariff adjustments, saying the increase of 29.96 per cent across board for all consumers was on the high side.
He said it was surprising that the PURC had abandoned its pledge to use the tariff adjustment to reserve the structure where industry subsidised residential consumers.
“The 29.96 per cent increase across the board for all consumers will erode competitiveness of industry and, therefore, will not be acceptable,” he said.
“We will engage the PURC within the coming days and express our concerns to them. For us, the timing of the adjustment is worrying coming after a 27.15 increase nearly five months ago,” Mr Twum-Akwaboah said.