The Minority Spokesperson on Energy, K.T. Hammond, has lambasted government over its announcement of a subsidy on electricity tariffs for some low level consumers.
According to the legislator, the move “does not make sense.”
“The government has decided in its own wisdom, political or economic, that the good people of Ghana should be hammered with the levies and taxes…So when government turns round and says that we’re going to give subsidy, is it subsidy obtained as a result of the killer taxes and levies granted by the government? Robbing Peter to pay Paul, it doesn’t make any sense at all,” he noted.
The Electricity Company of Ghana on Monday released a new electricity tariff which captures new subsidies by government to cushion low level consumers and to support industrial and commercial consumers of power.
But critics including the Integrated Social Development Center (ISODEC), are skeptical over the subsidies and have called for a reduction of levies on electricity tariffs instead.
Speaking to Citi News, KT Hammond, who is also the MP for Adansi Asokwa, argued that introducing subsidy is not the best option because it is “dangerous.”
“You cannot impose this dangerous tariff on the population which has come about as a result of taxes and turn around to say that you have given electricity users subsidies, it doesn’t work like that.”
The legislator further clarified that “it is not the subsidy per say that everybody is not happy with, it is the structure.”
“This same government will turn round and tell the people of Ghana that because of these supposed subsidies, there is another legacy debt which would subsequently be defrayed by further imposition of taxes. What we are saying is that, reduce the taxes and levies then we will not have the need for the subsidies that government intends to extend to electricity users,” he added.
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