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The Ministry of Energy is anticipating a further drop in electricity tariffs as the country works to increase the use of gas by power generation plants.
This it believes should bring respite to consumers.
Following promises of relieving the burden on consumers of electricity, the government announced major tariff reduction for electricity in 2018.
Domestic and commercial users of power enjoyed between 10 and 30 percent drop in the cost of power.
Although the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission [PURC] was expected to announce tariff adjustments in March, the Commission delayed its announcement to May which is expected to take effect in June, 2019.
Deputy Energy Minister in charge of Finance, Joseph Cudjoe stated hopes of a drop in electricity tariffs as part of assurances to the public in the wake of recent power outages and the impact on users of electricity.
The comment also followed the shutdown of the gas processing plant at Atuabo in the Western region and its effect on power supply to some parts of the country.
“We want to ensure reliability and put to rest this issue of intermittent power supply once and for all and that will mean making sure that you have your own supply sources of fuel which is gas. Moreover there was a reduction in tariffs last year [2018] and we are going to use gas more in the generation of power and that will also mean cost reduction for the Ghanaian,” he noted.
Most parts of the country have been saddled with intermittent power supply.
Many reasons have been attributed to this phenomenon.
Some analysts believe the government is facing financial challenges which have impacted the supply of fuel; a claim the Energy Ministry has strongly dismissed.
“We planned to make sure that nothing of the nature of shortage of power supply would have happened just like we went through during the partial shutdown of the power plant at Atuabo,” Mr. Cudjoe added.
The Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Isaac Osei has confirmed that the facility has taken delivery of diesel and heavy fuel for VRA and AKSA energy respectively.
The products are expected to be transported to the companies to sustain the generation of power.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Gas company is confident the situation will normalize within the next twelve days.