The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has increased tariffs for electricity and natural gas by 18.36% across the board for all consumer groups.
The decision was taken after a review for the second quarter of 2023.
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (in a statement explained that the decision was taken to balance the prevention of extended power outages and their adverse implications on jobs and livelihoods while minimizing the impact of rate increases on consumers.
The Quarterly Tariff Review Mechanism seeks to track and incorporate changes in key factors used in determining natural gas and electricity tariffs.
The PURC blamed the Ghana Cedis/US Dollar exchange rate, inflation, electricity generation mix, and the weighted average cost of natural gas (WACOG) as the factors that influenced the latest increment.
“This review has become necessary to maintain the real value of the cost of supply of the utility services and to ensure that the utility companies do not under or over-recover costs.
“While under-recovery has negative implications for the ability of the companies to supply service to consumers, and has the potential of causing outages of electricity, over-recovery unnecessarily overburdens consumers of electricity.
It may be recalled that PURC on January 16 increased electricity prices by about 30% and 8.3% for water effective February 1, 2023.
The PURC cited the cedi depreciation, soaring inflation and issues with power generation as reasons for approving the increment.
In a release issued by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the power distributor said it has catalogued all unit consumption and the expected cost in a “Reckoner” which clearly explains how the tariff is applied and billed.