They explained that Ghanaian enterprises and citizens were being strangled by tariffs daily that defied economic logic, crushed competitiveness, and created fertile ground for illegal connections and power theft.

“We are outraged by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission’s (PURC) persistent move through its continued nationwide stakeholders engagement, all aimed at increasing electricity tariffs next year.

“In a country striving to attract investment and stimulate industrial development, the current electricity pricing regime amounts to a direct attack on manufacturing and productivity,” the Food and Beverages Association of Ghana (FABAG), Rev. John Awuni, told the Graphic Business.

He explained that the skyrocketing cost of electricity in Ghana was not just unsustainable, but anti-business, anti-growth, and fundamentally flawed.

He stressed that Ghanaian enterprises and citizens were being strangled by tariffs daily that defied economic logic, crushed competitiveness, and created fertile ground for illegal connections and power theft.

“In a country striving to attract investment and stimulate industrial development, the current electricity pricing regime amount to a direct attack on manufacturing and productivity.

Businesses, especially SMEs and manufacturers, were being forced to scale down operations, lay off workers, or pass exorbitant costs to already overburdened consumers,” Rev. Awuni said.

Meanwhile, he said government officials, over the years, expressed commitments to economic transformation, adding, “It is important to call it what it is, Ghana’s electricity pricing system punishes honest businesses and users in general and rewards inefficiency.

“Honest, ordinary Ghanaians are essentially paying for the sector’s losses, mismanagement, and corruption. Consequently, businesses are pushed to the brink, and some are driven to bypass the system entirely.”

He stressed that when electricity became unaffordable, it became a target for illegal access, adding that we were fast creating a society where honest business owners were punished while defaulters and illegal users thrived.

“Worse still, the pricing structure disproportionately affects productive sectors such as factories, cold storage, and other energy-intensive industries, thereby discouraging local manufacturing and making imports even more attractive,” he stated.

Industrialisation

Touching on industrialisation, Rev. Awuni emphasised that the current pricing system was a clear betrayal of the government’s own promise to make Ghana an industrial hub, noting that the regressive tariffs over the years did not just make power theft attractive, but they made it rational.

He said that as bills became unbearable and enforcement remained erratic, many saw illegal connections as the only way to survive, adding that while theft should never be condoned, the current system practically dared citizens and businesses to take matters into their own hands.

“It’s imperative for the PURC to understand that pouring water into a leaking bucket does not simply make sense if the purpose is to conserve scarce water. What makes sense is to mend the leakage first.

“No number of higher tariffs can sustainably compensate for the inefficiency, mismanagement, poor revenue collection, bad debts, poor workers' attitude and corruption in our utilities,” he stated.