LET'S PAY REALISTIC TARIFFS — PIANIM (1B, SEPT 2, 2010)

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Sekondi

A FORMER chairman of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), Mr Kwame Pianim, says it is time for electricity consumers to stop their “radical opposition to tariff increases” and face the realities of the day by paying economic prices for energy.
He has also advocated total independence for the PURC to enable the Commission to engage utility companies directly and undertake both technical and financial audits with a view to arriving at full cost recovery.
Consistent with the mood with which he resigned as chairman of the Commission in 2006, Mr Pianim said, “We have to shed our exaggerated entitlement mentality and be ready to accept a tariff adjustment based on full cost recovery to attract investors into the field.”
Mr Pianim resigned in disagreement with the then NPP government over whether or not Ghanaians should pay the full cost of water and electricity generated. While he insisted on full recovery, the government opted for subsidy.
Sharing his thoughts on the energy sector at a symposium to mark the 10th anniversary of the Takoradi International Company (TICO) in Takoradi, Mr Pianim said “until and unless consumers are faced with full cost of the supply of electricity, we cannot expect serious attempts at energy utilisation efficiency and conservation on the part of the consumers.”
He said the people who misused energy were the same people adopting radical measures to resist adjustments being made to attract investors.
Mr Pianim drew attention to the Chinese situation and noted that with all their population, only 15 per cent of the energy generated in China went into domestic use, while in Ghana, more than 50 per cent of the country’s energy went into domestic use.
“This makes me ask if there are industries in our homes for such an amount of energy to be directed to them,” he said.
In his contribution, the General Manager of TICO, Nana Osafo Adjei, said the Volta River reservoir, which provided the resource for the country’s “seemingly unlimited hydro power” had begun to experience reduction in the water level.
“In the mid 1990s, an international report recommended thermal complementation as the most feasible alternative source,” he said.
He said TICO was an example of that initiative that had over the past 10 years supported the overall energy requirement of the country.
“With about 12 per cent of total generating capacity in Ghana and yet delivering an average of well over 15 per cent resulting in total export of 9,165,254 megawatt hours of energy,” he said.