Tariffs must enhance business environment
Every statement from the President is a policy directive in a way.
Advertisement
We, therefore, deem the appeal from the President to Ghanaians to pay realistic tariffs for electricity to guarantee realistic and stable supply of power as a move to prepare our minds for an upward adjustment in tariffs.
There is no doubt that tariffs in this country for both water and electricity are low, except that people have issues with efficiency in power generation and taps that do not run throughout the day.
Furthermore, consumers are not very sure whether tariff adjustments will bring about efficiency in service delivery.
There had been occasions in the past when the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) had given assurances that it would make sure that the utility companies raised their efficiency levels to be at par with the upward adjustment in tariffs.
Unfortunately, on all those occasions, the companies had not lived up to expectation.
We hear the utility companies very loud and clear about the fact that they are producing power and water at rates far lower than the rates consumers pay, thereby leaving a huge gap between investment and revenue.
We think that the utility companies have not been very fair to consumers because of their inability to give value to customers.
Power and water services are disrupted without recourse to the consumer, while officials of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) who have constant engagement with the public think that they are doing consumers a favour.
Furthermore, officials of these two companies are slow to react to complaints from consumers, even though they have customer service outlets dotted around the country.
It appears the monopoly being enjoyed by the ECG and the GWCL is not engendering competition, as their virtual control of the market has made them complacent.
Sometimes when the issue of the realistic payment of tariffs is made a prerequisite for efficient service, then the chicken-and-egg scenario comes to mind.
Certainly the utility companies need money to expand services to all parts of the country, especially in our sprawling cities. But the upward adjustment must not be done to suffocate consumers.
Indeed, as the debate over the payment of realistic tariffs rages, the discussion should not lose sight of salary levels in the country.
We know of safety nets such as lifeline tariffs for poor people in our society, and here again those lifeline tariffs fall below the needs of majority of the people whose income levels cannot take them home.
Frankly speaking, many businesses have complained about the high cost of doing business in our country and always cite high power tariffs as one of the reasons for that.
An efficient power supply system is an economic enabler, and that is why the Daily Graphic urges the government to hasten slowly in its attempt to adjust tariffs for the utility companies.
After all, in the past such adjustments did not impact positively on the business environment as they rather created bottlenecks in the economic environment.