National Communications Team Member for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kofi Tonto, has accused the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government of increasing electricity tariffs by 27% while shifting attention to investigations into prepaid meter complaints.
According to him, the cumulative tariff increment under the current administration explains the recent public outrage over fast depleting prepaid credits and high electricity bills.
In recent weeks, consumers across the country have complained about prepaid meters running faster than expected and alleged over-billing by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
Speaking on Joy News as monitored by NewsDesksGH on March 2, he said,
“The fact is that you have increased electricity by 27%, but you don’t want to talk about it. What is the point of the investigation?”
Kofi Tonto recounted that the Minister of Energy, John Jinapor, set up investigations into some missing cables and containers, but it came to nothing.
He argued that rather than focusing on investigations, government must acknowledge the tariff hikes.
He questioned why the increase in tariffs is not being factored into the public conversation.
“Always wasting our time. You’ve increased electricity by 27%. Are you telling us that has nothing to do with why the meters are running?”
“Even if you want to talk about meters, are we going to turn a blind eye to the fact that electricity has been increased by 27%? How can we have this conversation and that simple fact is completely lost.”
Kofi Tonto dismissed that approach and urged the government to accept responsibility.
“Accept that you’ve messed up, you’ve increased tariffs and stop blaming everybody else but yourself. Just like you’ve messed up with cocoa and you’re blaming everybody else.”
On February 26, the Deputy Minister of Energy, Richard Gyan-Mensah, gave ECG seven days to investigate complaints that prepaid meters were “running faster” than expected.
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) also issued a 48-hour directive to ECG to address the rapid depletion of credits and protect consumers.
ECG is today expected to release a detailed public statement outlining its findings and indicating the scale of any potential refunds for customers found to have been overbilled.
