The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has justified the recent increase in both electricity and water tariffs.

The PURC last week announced that Effective July 1, 2019, electricity tariff in the country will increase by 11.17%.

According to Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), the decision was taken after careful consideration of proposals by the various stakeholders in the power sector.

The increment has, however, not gone down well with a section of the public with some Ghanaians describing the increment as insensitive. The Minority in Parliament has also called on the government to intervene and reduce the tariffs.

Addressing the media on Monday, 24 June 2019, Chairman of the technical committee of the PURC, Ishmael Agyekumhene said the decision to increase the tariffs has become necessary to prevent under recovery of revenue.

“For the tariff review, the exchange rate that we use is 5.05 and you know that this is the kind of exchange rate that we have on the market. The rate of inflation has gone up. The price build up for electricity tariff, you have the forex component and the cedi component.

“For the forex component, you need to adjust when the exchange rate is low otherwise there will be under recovery…so if you look at these two that alone is enough to justify the increase that has just been announced…also the fact that tariff were reduced didn’t mean that tariff were never going to be increased again,” Mr. Agyekumhene said.