A former ECG Boss, now the Managing Director of Aluworks Limited Ernest Kwesi Okoh has added his voice to calls from industry players for government to be wary of denying utility providers the required resources to effectively run their operations to their fullest capacities.

Mr OKoh warned that “the depreciation in tariff is going to give us problems in the future” if these companies are continuously starved of the demands they make to run their operations. He emphasized that ‘‘the requirement from the industry is justified’’, explaining the 148% request is an “accumulative effect of all postponement we’ve had to make from year to year”.

It will be recalled that a couple of months ago, the utility companies sought for a 150% increment in tariff, faced with stiff opposition from organized labour and consumers in general. A 78% upward adjustment was subsequently approved by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) which saw no less resistance as it did in the first instance, with lots of threats from organized labour to embark on a nationwide industrial strike.

Following the unending agitations, government subsequently announced a 25% subsidy on the approved 78% upward adjustment; a move, which was largely perceived by many as a political gimmick and was not in the interest of the utility service providers. Mr. Okoh noted that supposed successive governments had allowed earlier proposed increases requested in the past by the service providers,  “we will not have accumulative effect”. He admitted that the private sector especially those into manufacturing and production are extremely worried about the “reduced increase” on their production cost though it has reduced cost burden in the interim. His fear however is bothered on the fact that in the event companies are unable to deliver on their mandate due to non availability of funds, its consumers such he and other manufacturing companies, will feel the impact on their businesses.

This situation, Mr. Okoh intimates is unhealthy for businesses largely reliant on enormous amount of energy supply to operate and must be addressed. He explained that the reason Gross domestic product (GDP) is small is that “we are importing at the disadvantage of local producers”; a situation he fears could drive investors away. He complained that as a manufacturer his market share has gone down to 18% due to Chinese products flooding the market, noting that it is “not that our goods are not good rather due to the fact that the Chinese government gives subsides on their products arriving here (Ghana), to make it cheaper”. He discourages the urge to compete with the first world as a country when, it is not in the state to compete at that level. He said Ghana is a developing country and is “too young to compete with the first world”.

Analyzing the difficulties local producers go through, Mr. Okoh called on government to focus on first building and redeeming “the integrity of the ports”; instead of concentrating on “the administrative things around it”, which it unfortunately perceives as the problem. He said the amount of time and resources wasted at the ports to clear and export goods or materials must be checked. He discouraged the situation where exporters and importers would have to pay huge sums of money as pre-production charges; citing clearance charges, VAT, NHIL, Standards Authority, FDA and ECOWAs charges and be cash trapped at the end of the day.

He said ‘sometimes we have goods sitting in the ports three to four weeks before it leaves the port’. Finally when the goods leave the port, ‘‘there is a VAT refund and export rebate supposed to have come which never comes; you can’t go and do the next one because your cash flow is gone, unless you go and borrow from the bank" at cut throat interest rates.

He noted that ‘meanwhile you need to pay your employees’ irrespective of the prevailing situation. He advised that government must understand that ‘we need to grow Ghana, identify which industries need support and must be supported’ to be able to create that enabling environment as always promised.