{"id":106135,"date":"2025-12-10T02:43:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=106135"},"modified":"2025-12-10T02:43:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:43:00","slug":"well-do-our-best-to-keep-the-lights-on-ecg-assures-despite-tariff-shortfalls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=106135","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019ll do our best to keep the lights on \u2013 ECG assures despite tariff shortfalls"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>3 Minute, 8 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) says it will continue to do everything possible to keep the lights on, even though the latest tariff adjustment falls short of what the company believes is needed to sustain its operations.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Joy News\u2019 PM Express on Monday, Energy Economist with the company, Ebenezer Baiden, said the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) had tried to strike a fair balance in its decision, but ECG would have to work within strict limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, PRC has done the balancing act. Yes, though we require a number, what they say is, this is what consumers can afford. So we\u2019re going to now take whatever has been given and then work with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He explained that ECG had major investment commitments it had struggled to pay for over the years. The small room created in the latest tariff adjustment, he noted, was intended to help clear some of those burdens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re supposed to do our best out of the revenues that we\u2019ve been given. We are in a situation where investments have been made. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve not been able to pay for it. Now we\u2019ve been given some 9% or 10% for us to be able to recover as part of this cost\u2026 and pay for it. We\u2019re able to clean our books,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Baiden pointed to improvements in the sector\u2019s Cash Waterfall Mechanism, saying, \u201cLast month, Cash Waterfall was able to pay for most of the invoices that came from upstream providers and then also the SOEs. So it\u2019s looking good, we\u2019ll work with what we have, and then make sure that we please our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admitted that the system today is better than before, even if still constrained. \u201cFrom where we are coming from and where we are today, we think that it can be better\u2026 It\u2019s better. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we have, we take it, we work with it, and make sure that we deliver services to our customers. So we have a very positive outlook that we are looking okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when pressed by host Evans Mensah on whether the nearly 10% increment was enough, Mr Baiden was clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not enough,\u201d he said. He explained that ECG had sought much more, particularly because its distribution tariff had not been reviewed for a long period. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trying to rebase the ECG one. So that\u2019s why you see the highest increase on the ECG portion.\u201d<\/p>\n

He broke down the industry request: \u201cWhen you put the 2 to 5% for ECG, the 56% for VRA, and then up to 100% for GRIDCo, all come up to 46%. So we\u2019re talking about a 46% adjustment that we put before PURC, and then PURC says, I\u2019m doing 9.86%.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that government renegotiations of generation contracts had helped moderate overall costs. <\/p>\n

\u201cGeneration cost is up to about 65 to 70% of the total build up\u2026 government of Ghana did a lot of restructuring and renegotiation\u2026 so it\u2019s had quite some impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Baiden also highlighted ECG\u2019s investments in customer-facing improvements. \u201cLook at the customer service centres. Look at the automation now; the Power App, you can report faults\u2026 and all these were some of the issues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When asked bluntly if the tariff adjustment was enough to fully guarantee power stability, Mr Baiden offered assurance but acknowledged limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will do our best to keep the lights on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pressed further, he clarified: \u201cWe have said it\u2019s not enough, okay, but we will make sure the lights are on. And if we have to even borrow to make sure we finance such services, we\u2019ll do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"We'llThe Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) says it will continue to do everything possible to keep the lights on, even though the latest tariff adjustment falls short of what the company believes is needed to sustain its operations.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1202,158,1951,1883,10,9,2859],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electricity-company-of-ghana-ecg","category-energy","category-hp-news-1","category-national","category-politics","category-popular","category-purc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}