Executive Director of Institute for Energy Security (IES), Nana Amoasi VII has said the recent upward adjustment in utility tariffs announced by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) is caused largely by political interferences.
Nana Amoasi VII explained that the variables to be considered for an upward adjustment of utility tariffs have shown some stability in the recent months, hence PURC should have announced a marginal increment in utility tariff.
However, he stressed that PURC’s inability to announce tariff adjustment in the fourth quarter of 2024 which was the election period and first quarter of 2025 because there was no board to approve tariff adjustment have resulted in under-recoveries for which reason the upward adjustment is huge than what was supposed to have been announced.
“We’ve seen tariff adjustment upward because of ECG’s inefficiencies, to some extent the NEDCO’s inefficiencies as well as under recoveries which are induced by political interference,” he said.
Speaking on TV3 New Day’s Big Issue on Monday, April 14, 2025, Nana Amoasi VII said PUR have now been compelled to make customers “pay for the sins of the past or the under recoveries of the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.”
“There’s been also an influencing or tampering of the work of the PURC by politicians…And so if there should have been any increment at all, it should be marginal but this time around, you realize that the PURC have introduced a fixed factor and that is under-recoveries. How did it come about?
“Because in the fourth quarter of 2024, we should have had a tariff adjustment of close to 12% but because of the elections the PURC was force to announce only 3% and so there was 9% under recovery.
“Also, for the first quarter of this year, we check with PURC and they say they did not have a board to approve a tariff adjustment and so they did not. So, we are paying for the sins of the past or the under recoveries of the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 that is why we are seeing almost 15% electricity tariff upward adjustment,” he stated.
Nana Amoasi noted that there would have been upward adjustment but not huge if PURC’s work is not interfered by political decisions.
“If we allow the PURC to work, I am sure we would have been at this point, at least we would have seen an adjustment incrementally but safer for consumers.”
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has increased electricity and water tariffs by14.75% and 4.02% respectively effective May 3, 2025.
This is contained in a press release dated April 11.
“The Commission, in their decision today at 6pm reviewed upward the average end-user tariff for electricity by 14.75% (See Table 2) and also 4.02% (See table 3) upward for water supply across board for all category of consumers,” the release said.
