Electricity bills: Gov't profiting from consumers

Government profits about GHC34 from every GHC100 worth of electricity Ghanaians buy, Member of Parliament for Bantama Constituency has said.

Speaking on Peace FM's morning show on Thursday, Henry Kokofu said the country must take a second look at the country's tax buildup on electricity.

"The tax on electricity is too much. we must look at that area. We have energy levy, 10 percent, service charge of GHc7 flat rate for every consumer and a VAT of 17½. So the clear taxes alone is 27.5 percent.

"Every 100 Ghana Cedis of electricity of light you buy, government profit from you by 27.5 Ghana Cedis and if you add it to the 7 cedis, you get 34.5 for every 100 Ghana Cedis [ of electricity you buy.]," Kokofu said.

On Tuesday, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission asked the ECG to stop the implementation of the new billing software after its investigations revealed anomaly in the billing system.

According to a statement from the PURC and copied to Pulse.com.gh, the directive has been "necessitated by Complaints which it has received from consumers of Electricity regarding issues of overbilling."

"The Commission after a thorough investigation into the matter through our Monitoring Exercise which culminated into visits to specific areas and also interrogation of bills which were presented to consumers by the Electricity Company of Ghana, came to the conclusion that there was an anomaly in the initial implementation of the new billing software," a statement signed by Nana Yaa Jantuah, director of Public Relations and External Affairs of PURC added.