Chairman of Parliament\u2019s Energy Committee, Emmanuel Bedzrah, has vowed never to approve any proposal brought forward by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the Chairman of the Energy Committee, I will not approve of anything that ECG will bring to us,\u201d he declared on Joy News\u2019\u00a0PM Express<\/em>\u00a0on September 9.<\/p>\n Mr. Bedzrah\u2019s stance comes in the wake of ECG\u2019s request to the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) for a 225 per cent increase in its Distribution Service Charge.<\/p>\n The company insists the steep adjustment is necessary to prevent financial collapse and guarantee a stable electricity supply.<\/p>\n But the Energy Committee Chairman says he is resolute.<\/p>\n When host Evans Mensah pressed, \u201cYou mean what you mean?\u201d he responded, \u201cYes, Zero. I just returned from abroad and on my own page. That is my committee\u2019s WhatsApp platform. It was a bipartisan bashing of ECG. I mean, nobody will come to us with this.\u201d<\/p>\n He explained that ECG\u2019s recent history of tariff adjustments had already generated anger in Parliament.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last time they increased by 17% they came and we told them, well, you should have consulted and you didn\u2019t consult. How can you increase the ECG tariff to 225%?\u201d<\/p>\n Reflecting on his time as Ranking Member for Works and Housing and Water Resources, Mr. Bedzrah admitted his earlier position on utility tariffs was more flexible.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, when I was on the other side of the aisle as the ranking member for Works and Housing and Water Resources, I remember, in one of our conversations with PURC, I told them that, well, I would even approve of about 300% for them at that time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut sitting here as the chairman of the Energy Committee, and listening to PRC, ECG and all the institutions that are under PRC, I will not approve anything that ECG will bring to us.\u201d<\/p>\n His remarks were made as the PURC continues stakeholder engagements over proposals from ECG and the Ghana Water Company Limited, which is also demanding a 280 per cent rise in tariffs, citing pollution and the effects of illegal mining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chairman of Parliament\u2019s Energy Committee, Emmanuel Bedzrah, has vowed never to approve any proposal brought forward by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). \u201cAs the Chairman of the Energy Committee, I will not approve of anything that ECG will bring to us,\u201d he declared on Joy News\u2019\u00a0PM Express\u00a0on September 9. Mr. Bedzrah\u2019s stance comes in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":13083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3537,41],"tags":[1661],"class_list":["post-13082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-general-news","tag-ecg-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13084,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13082\/revisions\/13084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}