Minister of Energy, John Peter Amewu has disclosed that 85% of Ghanaians will enjoy President Nana Akufo-Addo’s directive to absorb electricity bills for a period of three months.
The Minister disclosed this today, Thursday, April 14, 2020, at a press briefing organised by the Ministry of Information.
President Akufo-Addo announced that the government will fully cover the bills of low-income consumers of electricity in the country for April, May and June 2020.
The Energy Minister said the package will also benefit industries too.
“About 86-87% of the Ghanaian population has access to the national grid so this directive by the President means that about 85-86% of Ghanaians will enjoy this access,” the Minister noted.
Government to absorb electricity bills for the poor, others to enjoy 50% slash
Government announced it will fully cover the bills of low-income consumers of electricity in the country for April, May and June 2020.
The remaining consumers who fall outside of this category will enjoy a 50% percent reduction in the cost of electricity for the same period.
“We have decided further measure of mitigation for Ghanaians for the next three months… Government will fully absorb electricity bills for the poorest of the poor, i.e: lifeline consumers. This will cover persons who consume 0 to 50-kilowatt hours per month for this period. This forms part of relief interventions by the state amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Other categories of consumers will enjoy a 50 percent discount within the same period. For all other consumers, residential and commercial, the government will absorb 50 percent of your electricity bill for this period using your March 2020 bill as the benchmark,” the President noted.
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The customer population of one million of ECG is about 27.4% of the ECG total customer population and this means that at the current tariffs government is absorbing almost an amount of GHC8.5m per month for Ghanaians
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Mr. Amewu at the media briefing also disclosed that the government will spend a little over GHS1 billion within the next three months on reliefs.
ECG currently oversees one million metres and its customers, 27.4 percent are lifeline customers.
“This means that at the current tariff level, Government is absolving almost an amount of GHS 8.5 million per month for [life line customers],” Mr. Amewu noted.
For non-lifeline customers 2,780,886 are residential and 1,608 are special load tariff customers
“A 50 percent discount on their electricity bill will translate into GHS 235.4 million per month. The total reliefs for ECG customers per month are, therefore, GHS244 million.”
All these reliefs for ECG customers will translate to GHS732 million over three months.
For the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), “the total government relief for all customers is about GHS47 million or GHS141 million for the three month period,” Mr. Amewu said.
There will be reliefs of GHS10.9 million per month for a customer population of 500,069 lifeline customers representing GHS 60.67 of the total NEDCO customers.
There will be reliefs of GHS36 million per month for the remaining 369,000 non-lifeline customers.
For the Volta River Authority (VRA), the reliefs will be GHS55.5 million per month or a total of GHS166.4 million for three months.
The VRA reliefs will cover 12 mining customers at GHS42.4 million per month or GHS127.2 million for three months.
Also under this, the Volta Aluminum Company will receive reliefs of GHS4.8 million per month or a total of GHS14.4 million for the three months and other manufactory customers, which include cement manufacturing companies, among others, will benefit from GHS7.9 per month or 23.7 million for the three months.
