Gov’t must be forced to reduce electricity bills – Pratt

Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr has called on Ghanaians to ‘force government to reduce the high electricity bills’ that has caused lots of outrage in the country.

Kwesi Pratt, speaking on Adom FM’s Morning Show, ‘Dwaso Nsem’ on Thursday said, this was necessary since the new tariffs is killing businesses in the country.


New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo promised that he would reduce electricity tariffs when elected into power.

“I think it is important for there to be clarity on this matter. If the government cannot or will not listen to the calls for the reduction of electricity tariffs, it is important for the people of Ghana to know that God-willing, if I win the elections of this year, I definitely will. I will definitely reduce electricity tariffs,” he said.

But Kwesi Pratt responding to this said Ghanaians cannot wait for Nana Addo to be elected President in six months before electricity bills can be reduced.

According to him, many businesses would have collapsed by the time Nana Addo is elected to come and reduce the electricity tariffs.

“We can’t wait for Nana Addo to come and reduce light bills in six months time, why should we wait for six months before we decrease it when we can do it now…let’s be hard on government, and tell the government and the PURC to reduce the bills now,” he said.

Ghanaians have been up in arms against the government and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) over outrageous electricity bills served them by the company.

The new billing system implemented by the electricity distribution company has led to the collapse of several businesses with a large section of Ghanaians complaining that they have either cut down drastically or stopped using electricity in their homes.

Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr last week lamented on the same show that outrageous billing was leading to the collapse of his printing business.

“How can electricity bill that was around Ghc300 move to Ghc 1200, when I complained, it jumped to Ghc1800; while we were still deliberating on this, it shot up to Ghc2000 something. The bill that was brought last month was just too serious, it was 6000 Ghana cedis, I don’t even know whether to cry or to laugh about this…,” he lamented.

“Since birth, I have never seen a meter like that, herh, it is very dangerous…now, they tell me it is even impossible to top up credit on the meter, you have to wait for the credit to get finished and I simply can’t comprehend it,” he said.

Kwesi Pratt continued his lamentations this week by calling on the citizens to revolt and force the government and the ECG to reduce the new billing drastically.

“No one in Ghana can say that the new billing must continue, it would disturb us if it is allowed to continue, it is very harsh, it would collapse companies, they should decrease it early because it is very disturbing,” he said.


source:ghanaweb.com