The Secretary General of the Trade Unions Congress (TUC), Kofi Asamoah says increases in tariffs through the automatic tariff adjustment system beginning next year, is likely to worsen the living standards of Ghanaians.

According to him, even though stakeholders agreed to the new system and it commencement early 2014, when the challenges came up some weeks ago, its introduction have marred the Christmas festivities for workers.

Speaking to JoyNews Tuesday, Mr. Asamoah indicated that the TUC would want to analyse the indicators used in the tariff adjustment system as it is important not to allow the indicators to bring untold hardships on the people.

He therefore called for the economic management of the tariff adjustment indicators to ensure that  it is always kept down to suit the levels of workers in the country.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) yesterday, announced that tariffs for electricity will go up by 9.73 per cent, while that of water will go up by 6.80 per cent from January 1.

Meanwhile, the PURC insists that the increases are a reflection of the Automatic Tariff Adjustment and will therefore be implemented as scheduled.