Benjamin Boakye
THE Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) says though it is happy with the power tariff reduction announced by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) recently, it would want the Commission to publish the variables that informed its decision.
A statement issued and signed by Ben Boakye, its executive director, ACEP, said that would allow for transparent and independent assessment of the decision to ensure that the need for tariff reduction was carefully balanced with the interest of the utilities.
“This is enough signal that the PURC has rediscovered itself to ensure that inefficiencies are not automatically transferred to the consumer.”
“ACEP’s analysis show that the reduction of 10- 30 percent in tariffs translates to about 30 percent on domestic consumers, 41 percent on commercial consumers, 36 percent on special load consumers and 24 percent on mining companies on the Dollar value of the tariff in 2015.
“This drastic response points to the realisation that the sustainability of the power sector has been at risk with its attendant negative impact on economic growth.”
ACEP added that it was happy to see bigger relief of 30 percent granted to commercial consumers.
“For so long commercial consumers have been subsidizing domestic consumers by paying more. The new tariffs seek to reverse that trend to give industry the impetus to create jobs, remain competitive and by extension contribute more to government’s revenue through taxation.”
A business desk report