The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, PURC, will next month, June 2019, announce new utility tariffs which will take effect from July 1.
The PURC in January held a final public hearing on tariff adjustment to reach reasonable electricity and water tariffs.
According to the PURC, the purpose of the meeting was to enable the service providers to present their proposals before the stakeholders for consideration.
The utility companies who attended the meeting were the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), Enclave Power Company Limited, a Ghanaian-owned private power distribution company, Ghana Water Company Limited and Power Distribution Services Limited (PDS), which has taken over the distribution of power from ECG.
Speaking to Citi FM, PRO for PURC Bawa Munkaila said the earlier dates set to announce the new tariffs were postponed to allow the PDS take over the distribution of power and present appropriate data for the announcement of the new tariffs.
"We will be coming out with a new tariff to be effective on the 1st of July, however, we will announce the tariff in June, because of the take over by PDS we observe some emerging trends and the take over by PDS, we inculcating it as a condition subsequent so that after they start operating we will be able to take into details the revenue requirement that is needed by PDS and all that will be inculcated in the tariff and also coupled with some critical emerging issues in the sector that may affect the final tariff, so we decided to hold on instead of the March that we said we will announce it we decided to give it another quarter so that we will observe the emerging trends, so that we will come out with a tariff that will stand the test of time."
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The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, PURC, has begun investigations into the activities of the Power Distribution Services, PDS the new power distribution company, which took over the distribution of electricity from ECG, over the frequent power outages, dumsor, experienced in most part of the country from March 11.
According to the PURC, appropriate sanctions will be meted out to PDS should investigations point to a breach in service delivery.
Executive Secretary of PURC, Maame Dufie Ofori in an interview with Joy FM said they are monitoring the situation with their benchmarks and won't hesitate to apply the required sanctions if they are found culpable.
"There is no one who is happy about lack of electricity which most of the time affect production because they depend on power, we will not like this to happen, the appropriate enforcement or penalty will be meted out according to what we have in our system if we found them guilty of breaching the regulations."
"We are monitoring them based on benchmarks we don't just get up and monitor in a vacuum we monitor based on benchmarks these benchmarks are actually assessed over an appreciable period," she added.
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