News:
November 13, 2013
Member of Parliament for Obuasi West and a Member of Parliament’s Finance committee, Kwaku Kwarteng says the decision to by government to subsidies electricity tariff by 25 percent will cost the country in future.
According to him “we ought to understand the implications and how the government intend to deal with it…; government ought to be forthcoming.’’
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP also questioned where government is going to raise the money for the subsidy from. “We all know what is happening in the economy, the 2014 budget statement is almost ready, the allocations have been made…’’
‘’So the subsides where is it going to come from,’’ he quizzed.
Mr. Kwarteng charged government to show how it intends to finance the subsidy.
“It is entirely possible for government to come out now and say reduce the announced level… A year from today we will be told that utility companies are so indebted that the consumer now has to pay more,’’ he said.
‘’If that happens what it means is that government just played propaganda, it shifted the burden to next year so that it will be back on consumers. Those are the issues we[NPP] are raising and i think government must be clear with us how it is going to finance this subside,’’ Mr. Kwarteng stressed.
He stated that government is pretending to bring relief when “in fact a year from now consumers will be invited to either pay the debt accumulated by the utility company or will need to make do with the inferior quality of service.’’
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