The Government of Ghana under President Akufo-Addo has announced plans to spend an additional GHS1.02 billion to give free electricity and water to Ghanaians in the next three months.
The move is part of the government’s Covid-19 alleviation programme to ease the pain brought by the coronavirus pandemic.
President Akufo-Addo, in April, announced his government’s absorption of the cost of electricity for all lifeline consumers with industries given a 50 percent rebate for their consumption in three months.
The free electricity and water ended in June.
Presenting a mid-year Budget in Parliament, Thursday, Ghana’s Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta said the government would extend the free electricity and water for the next three months.
“We all remember so well how the previous government, after imposing the inconvenient and income-sapping ‘dumsor’ on households and businesses for five years, and insensitively increased electricity tariffs first by 89 percent, then by 10 percent, then by 78 percent and 28 percent and finally by 59 percent between 2010 and 2015 alone. It took courage and care for President Akufo-Addo to do what no other government had been able to do before, which is a net reduction of electricity tariffs by 11 percent since 2017. Such is the higher level of care that today, after nearly four years in office, electricity prices for Ghanaians, households and businesses all included, remain cheaper in both nominal and real terms than what they were before 2017. Mr Speaker, the reason is simple. It is because we put the concerns and aspirations of the ordinary Ghanaian first. That is also why we further reduced electricity prices by half and completely provided potable water for free for everybody since March this year. And we will extend it for another three months.
It takes a caring government of the people, and with that, I mean, a government of all the people to offer cost-free water to all across the country; representing all domestic and commercial customers in Ghana for three months.
“It takes a caring government to be for the people and for business-large and small-to choose to subsidise electricity consumption by 50 percent to four million (4,086,286) households and nearly 700,000 (686,522) businesses at a cost of Gh¢1.02 billion in three months. And we will extend the coverage for lifeline customers for another three months,” the Minister elaborated.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
