Mahama increased electricity tariff by 166%, NPP decreased by 5% – Bawumia

The National Democratic Congress, during the Mahama administration, cumulatively increased electricity tariff by 166%, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has said.

On the back of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission’s recent hike in power and water tariffs by 5.94 per cent and 2.22 per cent, respectively, Dr Bawumia said at the launch of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) at the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Auditorium at the University of Ghana (UG) on Wednesday, 2 October 2019 that: “Between 2013 and 2016, just the last four years of the NDC government, the cumulative increase in electricity tariff was 166%”.

Dr Bawumia said that in line with the Akufo-Addo government’s agenda to create jobs, the administration has embarked on moves to cut electricity tariff to spur more employment.

According to him, “In 2018, we [NPP] reduced electricity prices of businesses by 30% and for households by 17.5 %, an average of around 22%.”

“Earlier this year in July, there was an increase of electricity price of 11% and yesterday of 5.6%. When you take the total cumulative increase on average, as I said, between 2017 and today, you have a cumulative decrease of about 5%”.

He continued: “So, the NDC, in their last four years, increased [electricity tariff] by 166%, we have come down since we have been in government by 5% on average”.

This, Dr Bawumia said, far outweighs the performance of the Mahama administration.

Comparatively, he said it is “still ‘boot for charley-wote’ when you come to electricity pricing”.