A study by the Economics Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has revealed, high electricity tariffs are making Ghanaians poorer. It found the total economic value of households for one kilowatt per hour of electricity in the country is Gh¢1.20 Ghana cedi or 27 cents. Three thousand one hundred households in rural and urban Ghana were examined to assess the total economic value allocated to electricity. "The assessment was geared toward energizing economic growth since Ghana's severe energy crisis led to a loss of 5.6 per cent of GDP in a period when economic growth was on average less than 5 per cent,” says lead researcher, Dr. Jonathan Quartey. Dr. Jonathan Quartey "Such a value had not been available to guide policy makers on the extent to which tariffs could be raised in order not to make consumers worse off,’’he emphasizes. Existing tariffs are equivalent to about 11.1 per cent of household incomes. Consumers are, however, able to afford only 8.5 per cent of their incomes to pay for electricity.