The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) on Thursday said there has not been any increase in the existing Electricity and Water tariffs for the first quarter running from January – March 2016.

A statement signed by Nana Yaa Akyempim Jantuah, Director, Public Relations and External Affairs of PURC, said the Commission, using the Automatic Adjustment Formula, arrived at the decision considering the movements in the variables that underpin the Formula.

The Automatic Adjustment Formula (AAF) is a Tariff Mechanism that seeks to track and incorporate movements in key determining factors to reflect the cost of electricity and water every quarter.

The following factors are considered in computing the Automatic Adjustment Formula:  Ghana Cedi US$ Exchange Rate, Inflation, Fuel Mix (Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Distillate fuel) and Generation Mix (hydro and Thermal).

Others are Power Purchase Cost, Demand Forecast, Chemical Cost (Water) and Electricity Cost, which is a major cost component in water production.

Meanwhile, the Commission said it had embarked on a post Tariff monitoring programme aimed at providing the end user improved quality of service and also to ascertain the veracity of complaints received from consumers concerning the implementation of the December 2015 Tariff Adjustments.

To get to the bottom of these complaints by consumers concerning paying more than the increase in the December Tariffs, the Commission is collaborating with the ECG to acquire information that would enable it to interrogate the metering software used for billing customers of electricity.

The statement said during the Commission’s monitoring exercises it was realized that there is a rampant failure of some pre-payment meters which have not been replaced and the Commission is urging the ECG to replace these as a matter of urgency.

In relation to this occurrence, it has become apparently clear that the ECG has breached Rule 13&14 of the Electricity Supply and Distribution (Standards of Performance) Regulations 2008 (LI1935).

The Commission has put in motion the process to penalise the ECG concerning the above-mentioned breach.

The Commission is also monitoring the Transmission and Generation Utilities and in due course will inform consumers on its findings regarding the service they provide to support the system.

The statement reminded consumers of Electricity that in accordance with Rule 4 of the Electricity Supply and Distribution (Standards of Performance) 2008, (LI1935), a supplier of Electricity shall ensure that the cumulative electricity interruption for each customer within the operational year does not exceed the following: 48 hours in a metropolitan, municipal or industrial area, 72 hours in a district capital and 140 hours in a rural area.

“This situation does not include scheduled outages of a special nature,” the statement said.

The Commission is encouraging consumers having challenges with service delivery to report to the PURC for redress, it added.