Electricity Tariff To Go Down In 2018

Electricity tariff is expected to be reviewed downwards next year when government presents the 2018 budget to parliament in November this year, the Minister of Energy, Mr Boakye Agyarko has said.

According to him, government has not been able to reduce the tariff this year as promised prior to the elections due to moves to stabilize power supply in the country.

Addressing a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, Mr Agyarko assured that government is working to input the tariff reduction in the budget to bring relief to businesses and domestic uses.

“On the budget, it is our faithful expectation that we should be able to reduce tariff. We are getting a lot of corporation in so doing. So we believe that through this budget to the end of the year we should be able to start bringing the prices down,” he assured.

Mr. Agyarko explained that government was working to stabilize the price by reducing waste in the power generation and distribution systems.

“When we set out, the commitment was that we need to correct two things. One was stabilizing power so that we get the product that we are paying for. I believe that we have largely succeeded in stabilizing the supply of power”.

“Our next mandate is to begin the reduction of prices, and the reduction of prices takes a number of forms. Levies which we did in the last budget,” he added.

Mr. Agyarko pointed out that the ministry is working to substantially reduce the cost of production in the power sector.

“It doesn’t make much sense that for the same turbines and the same fuel, Ivory Coast is producing power cheaper than us, they on the average produce at 9 cents per kilowatts hour, we on the average produce at 14 cents per kilowatt hour,” he said adding that “we have to find a way to reduce the cost of production and we are working on it,” he said.

Source: Daily Graphic