Ghanaians will pay more for electricity following PURC’s decision to approve new tariffs across board for all consumer groups. The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), has justified its decision to increase electricity tariffs by 18.36 percent for the 2nd quarter of 2023.
PURC blamed the decision on the rising cost of fuel and gas, cedi depreciation, inflation among others.
The Commission in September 2022, undertook a major tariff review (2022-2025) in which, it considered the cost of operation for regulated utilities, exchange rate, inflation, cost of fuel and other factors.
Since the exchange rate, inflation and cost of fuel are neither under the control of the utilities nor the Commission, variations in these variables are considered as a pass-through cost.
With the recently announced quarterly tariff decision, the electricity utilities are to recoup an amount of GHS1.3149 billion over the next quarter.
This is to help purchase fuel to generate power, transmit, distribute and continuously serve consumers. To recover the full amount, electricity tariffs should have been increased by 27.51%.
However, given the approved tariff of 18.36%, an amount of GHS877.70 million will be recovered, leaving a balance of GHS437.22 million to be recovered. On the other hand, the amount to be recovered through the water tariff is GHS 650,267,161 million.
PURC says the 2nd quarter tariff decision of 18.36% for electricity helps to fully recover a 100 percent of the inflationary effect, 100 percent of the gas price effect and 50 percent of the exchange rate effect.
