Former Managing Director (MD) of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Dubik Mahama, has pushed back against the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission’s (PURC) plan to raise utility rates, stating that price hikes will not fix the structural problems confronting the distributor.
His remarks follow PURC’s announcement on Monday, June 22, of an upward revision to electricity and water charges. The revised rates are scheduled to begin on July 1, 2026.
In the Commission’s third-quarter adjustment, electricity tariffs will go up by 3.49 per cent across all categories, while water tariffs will rise by 0.85 per cent.
Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Big Issue with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Saturday, June 27, Mr. Dubik Mahama argued that the increases would only add pressure on households without tackling the underlying issues affecting ECG.
“What does inflation have to do with the operations of ECG? We keep going round and round on this issue. The solution to this tariff problem is in operations. Tariff increment is not a solution at this point. If we are to tie things properly, do you think we still need to have these tariff increments that are going to burden the customer?
The answer will be no,” he said.The ex-ECG chief insisted the company must focus on operational fixes, particularly resolving metering and software issues, rather than depending on rate adjustments. “There are certain operational steps that have to be put in place for us to appreciate the tariff increment; other than that, the tariff increment is a theoretical exercise. There’s a metering problem, a software problem, which was solved,” he added.
