ECG To Increase Tariffs

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is to increase tariffs to an appreciable level soon to enable it to meet its increasing cost of distribution and replacement of technical equipment.

The acting Managing Director of the company, Cephas Gakpo, told the Ghanaian Times that out of an amount of 994 million dollars the Company requested from government in 2007 to meet its technical Challenges, only 430 million dollars was released for disbursement over the past three years.

“There is a shortfall of 400 milloin dollars so how we can operate efficiently?” he asked adding that, there is the need to eliminate shortfall in revenue by adjusting tariffs upwards.

Mr. Gakpo said the seven per cent annual demand rate for electricity from the expanding population meant that the ECG Must redouble its plants and equipment acquisition every 10 years.

“There is not enough money to do investment to match the demand of electricity by the people,’’ he said, adding “that is why there are unacceptable levels of service delivery by the EC,’’ he admitted.

He declined to say the rate of the impending upwards adjustment in tariffs but said,” the rate proposed to PURC may be reviewed to enable ECG to cover its genuine operating cost and meet the demand growth of the people.

He gave the assurance that, the tariff increase will first have to be approved by the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) and urged the public to bear with the ECG when the tariffs are introduced.

The Managing Director disclosed that about 13 percent of power purchased from the Volta River Authority (VRA) are stolen by customers ‘’through plain theft and illegal connections.”

For example Mr. Gakpo said the ECG last year purchased 6,052 Million units of power from the VRA at GH˘419 million and sold it at ˘656Million.

He admitted that policing the over two million ECG customers to prevent theft is an onerous task and called on the public to play their watchdog role by reporting every theft to the police.

“The public must report those stealing energy to the police timeously because those stealing it are imposing extra burden on genuine tariff payers,’’ he said.

On his views about Ghana constructing nuclear plants to generate more and cheaper energy, Mr. Gakpo said ‘’ I do not recommend nuclear plants for the country, because safety precaution that exist elsewhere do not exist here.’’ He said, the discovery of large deposits of gas in Ghana is enough to support power generation.

Source: The Ghanaian Times