The Chairman of the Technical Committee of the Public Utility and Regulatory Commission (PURC), Hon. Moses Asaga, has stated that the current increment in tariffs �reflects the fact that government is a caring government.�
He revealed that the Commission took into consideration the current economic situation in the country before releasing the new tariff increments.
�There was this speculation that we were going to increase the electricity tariffs by 150%. In actual fact, when we were doing the stakeholders meeting, they were asking for about 166%, so for PURC to come to 78.9%, it means that we have taken into consideration the economic situation...to make sure that there is a win-win situation.�
The PURC on Wednesday announced that consumers will now have to pay up to 52% more for water and 78.9% more for electricity from October 1, 2013.
The announcement has since caused public outrage, but in an interview on Eyewitness News on Wednesday; Mr. Asaga stated that government is willing to support the utility companies in the country because �what we [government] have given them so far will be able to cover for their fuel cost and also their fixed cost.�
The former Member of Parliament indicated that in case of a deficit, �government will be willing to support the deficit. This will normally come in the form of supporting VRA [Volta River Authority] with what we call light crude oil cargo shipment for them to use for their thermal plants.�
According to him, the tariff adjustment was made taking into consideration the �general conditions, the requirement to be able to produce 1 kilowatt hour of electricity, and that was the way we derived our figures,� adding that once the increment takes effect, �the automatic adjustment formula will then kick in and this is normally on a quarterly basis.�
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