Chief calls for reduction in proposed tariffs

The Paramount Chief of the Hoviefe Traditional area near Ho in the Volta Region, Togbe Agbi III, has appealed to the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to consider scaling down the proposed tariffs for water and electricity.

According to him, consumers could only afford half of the proposed tariffs, adding that the 100 per cent increase proposed for electricity tariff was too high and could be unaffordable to the ordinary Ghanaian.

Togbe Agbi was speaking at the end of a public hearing organised by the PURC in Ho last Tuesday at which utility service providers and consumers dialogued on issues regarding the provision of utility services in the country.

Conservation of electricity

A member of the tariff team of the Electricity Company of Ghana, Mr Ebenezer Baiden, advised consumers of electricity to adopt good conservation methods and to avoid wasting electricity to reduce unnecessary inconsistencies in the supply of power to them.

He advised them to use good gadgets and to check them regularly to ensure that they were of the standard for efficient performance.

 End user tariff

 The director of systems operations of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDco) at Tema, Mr Bernard Tawia Modey, explained that the end user tariff was necessary to be paid to the ECG from which allocations were made for bulk generation, transmission and distribution services in the supply chain.

He also said the expansion of the transmission grid nationwide was a prerequisite for the future development of the nation and that it was required that funding was generated locally to end the dependence on foreign loans which had failed the nation due to the depreciation of the cedi.

Problems

Some of the questions asked at the forum bordered on the delay in issuing some consumers with their bills for almost three years although meters had been fixed in their homes.

This delay, they said, had led to accumulated and unpaid bills between GH¢300 and GH¢800 for consumers.