Duncan Amoah, the Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), has urged the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to reverse its decision to increase utility tariffs. He stated that industry stakeholders will oppose these hikes if the government does not rescind its decision. The PURC announced a 14.75% increase in the average end-user electricity tariff and a 4.02% increase in water tariffs for all consumer categories.
The revision follows the Commission’s quarterly tariff review process for the first and second quarters of 2025. The PURC attributed the adjustments to factors, including the exchange rate between the Ghana cedi and the US dollar, inflation projections, fuel costs (particularly natural gas), and the current hydro-thermal generation mix. Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Duncan Amoah, however, opines that the recent tariff hikes are unjustifiable and unreasonable.
“If you look at the circumstances surrounding the ECG, there are issues of accountability that render even public procurement processes and laws moot and ineffective. We have almost 2,000 containers unaccounted for, running into hundreds of millions of Cedis. “Then, we turn back and claim we don’t have money, hence being unable to sustain operations. Therefore, we are raising tariffs. This doesn’t add up, and PURC needs to backtrack on the decision.” Duncan Amoah further added that “coming back to the consumer to insist we pay more, I can assure will be resisted fiercely”.
