The Food and Beverages Association of Ghana (FABAG) is impressing on the government to direct the Public Utilities and Regulatory Commission (PURC) not to roll out its recent announcement of an increment in utility tariffs.
Effective June 1, 2023, the cost of water services will see an upward adjustment for all consumer groups while electricity and natural gas are also expected to go up by 18.36%
Samuel Aggrey, the Executive Secretary of the Food and Beverages Association of Ghana has been speaking to Citi Business News on the tariffs adjustment.
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“We have already said that the cost of production in Ghana is very expensive but unfortunately, we keep on seeing increment of tariffs. Not long ago, there were increments in taxes with the introduction of the three new taxes and all these will come to affect the way we do our businesses,” he said.
“The best the government can do now is to ask the PURC to hold on and then engage with stakeholders to see how best to solve the problem. From what we have seen, in the next three or four months, we are likely to see another increment and it is not fair for the ECG to be making losses for it to be passed on to the manufacturers or the domestic users,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Public Utility Regulatory Commission has urged Ghanaians to brace themselves for more increments in utility tariffs despite a recent upward adjustment of electricity tariff by 18% in the second quarterly tariff adjustment.
According to the commission, the tariff was supposed to be increased by 27.5% to cover some 1.3 billion cedis that ECG ought to have recovered.
The decision to increase it by 18% according to the commission means there is an outstanding GHC 437 million Ghanaians will be made to pay in the next tariff adjustment.
