Member of Parliament for Yapei Kusawgu John Jinapor has dismissed the justification given by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) for increases in electricity tariffs.
Despite mentioning that it considered 10 factors in arriving at the 11.17% tariff increase, Chairman of the PURC’s Technical Committee Ishmael Agyekumhene singled out exchange rate and inflation when asked to justify the move.
The increase comes a year after the government ignored all advice to announce a reduction in electricity tariffs forcing the PURC to follow suit and confirm the reduction.
The reduction is set to have drastically affected the operations of the power sector companies who are struggling to cope and are knee deep in debt.
Ishmael Agyekumhene at a press conference called by the PURC said the reductions could not have been maintained because the factors that were considered at the time had witnessed significant changes.
John Jinapor who is one of several industry persons who cautioned against the March 2018 reductions, however disagrees.
According to him the PURC cannot rely on inflation and exchange rates to justify its 2018 action because both statistics were going up at the time and therefore could not have been the basis for a reduction in tariffs.
John Jinapor who spent 4 years as a deputy minister in charge of the power sector is convinced that the PURC is shying away from stating the real reasons for the increases.
Story by: Sena Nombo/Radiogoldlive.com
