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The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has announced an upward review of electricity and water tariffs for the first quarter of 2023.
The new tariffs, which take effect February 1, 2023, will push electricity up by 29.96 per cent across the board for all customers while water increased by 8.3 per cent.
The commission, however, approved varying rate adjustments including some reductions for selected industrial and commercial consumers as part of the ongoing restructuring of the existing water rate structure.
A statement issued on Monday, January 16, 2023 and signed by the Executive Secretary of the PURC, Dr Ishmael Ackah, said the new tariff review was occasioned by exchange rate volatility, rising inflation, generation mix and weighted average cost of natural gas.
On September 1, 2022, the commission approved a 27.15 per cent increase in electricity and 21.55 per cent increase in water.
It was under a major tariff adjustment for the period.
Quarterly tariff review
The Executive Secretary said the new review was in conformity with the quarterly tariff review mechanism and guidelines as communicated in the Commission’s August, 2022 major tariff review decision.
He said the quarterly tariff review mechanism sought to track and incorporate changes in key factors used in determining natural gas, electricity, and water tariffs.
He said the objective was to maintain the real value of the cost of supply of these utility services and ensure that utility companies do not under or over-recover.
According to him, under-recovery has negative implications for the ability of the companies to supply service to consumers, and has the potential of causing outages of electricity (DUMSOR) and water supply.
He said that over recovery unnecessarily overburdens consumers of electricity and water.
He added that the quarterly tariff review mechanism was meant to ensure that none of these happens.
