Brace up for electricity tariff hikes – Bawa

Member of Parliament for Bongo, Edward Bawa says Ghanaians will have to brace up for electricity tariff hikes this year as the power sector is saddled with debt.

According to him, government’s failure to fulfill its financial obligations to Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and others is crippling the power sector.

This comes at a time the Auditor General’s report reveals huge power sector debts running into several millions of cedis.

It also comes in the wake of fresh admission by the GRIDCo that challenges with transmitting power have led to the erratic power supply being witnessed across the country.

GRIDCo says it will soon come up with a load shedding schedule in order allow its contractors carry out works on some installations.

“This year is a year of major tariff review, in 2018 when government decided to reduce power by 17.5, it was against expert advice.

“I remember very carefully that at the time I wrote an article warning government not to take us back to the days of dumsor and I had indicated that if we were talking about realistic tariff, the 17.5 % they were making at a point the dollar was depreciating as against prices of crude oil increasing did not make sense.

“You were forcing the utilities to make the reduction, for example for Car power, they still got their cost back regardless of the deduction government introduced,” he said.

By Mounkaila Abdoul-Razak Hassane|editors.3news.com|Ghana