Energy experts must stop parroting and read – Energy Minister fires

Minister for Energy, Boakye Agyarko is amazed by the position of some supposed energy experts following government’s announcement of tariff reduction.

According to him, the claims that government is trying to usurp the mandate of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) only exposes their ignorant.

Mr. Agyarko’s comment is an apparent rebuttal to some energy experts including Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobbey who believe government is to assume the role of the PURC.

This was after Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta announced an average reduction of between 13 and 21 percent in electricity tariffs for residential and industrial consumers while delivering the 2018 budget in Parliament Wednesday November




He revealed that, government had revised the tariff-setting methodology, and the cost structure for power production.

But this proposal to the PURC according to Dr. Wereko-Brobby is “extremely inappropriate,” since in his view, government cannot make a recommendation to the PURC on possible cuts in utility costs.

The former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Volta River Authority (VRA) maintained that PURC has the sole mandate of setting the tariffs.
But Mr. Boakye Agyarko said the entrenched position taken by the energy experts is unfortunate.

He indicated that government has only made a proposal to the regulatory body about the tariff reduction after doing their calculation thus they would be robbing the citizenry if PURC does not accept it.

The Energy Minister urged the experts to read Section 3 of the PURC Act 538 and quit ‘parroting’ ignorantly.

Boakye Agyarko said he is not surprised the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is in opposition because they are perpetual pessimists.

“If you [NDC] don’t aspire for something big, you remain small so the Akufo-Addo government we will do the bold things to make Ghana work again” he stressed.

Source: adomonline.com