The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called for the immediate suspension of the current utility tariffs and a return to the status quo before the announcement of the May 31, 2010 increases. Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, the TUC said any further delay in that direction would impose unbearable hardships on workers and households before the proposed review of the tariffs, as advised by the government. A government statement had earlier urged the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to meet organised labour and other stakeholders to discuss concerns raised over the hike in tariffs effected last month. But while the PURC indicated to the Daily Graphic yesterday that it would schedule that meeting for later this week; the TUC announced at its press conference that although it had temporarily put on hold its planned nation-wide demonstration, it would demand immediate action from the regulators. The Secretary-General of the TUC, Mr. Kofi Asamoah, said the IUC would continue with the wearing of red armbands and the flying of red flags at various workplaces as part of its campaign and that workers would be quick to mobilise if no immediate actions were taken by the utility regulators to call all stakeholders for a participatory review or the tariffs. Welcoming the government’s intervention on the issue, the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) also declared that the time to review the new utility tariffs was now, not soon, as was being suggested by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC). The AGI said it was timely to prevent the collapse of many businesses which would have resulted from the new tariffs. In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the President of the AGI, Nana Owusu Afari, said a downward review of the tariffs would also prevent the -planned entrenchment of many industrial and commercial orders, especially small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) which formed about 80 per cent of businesses in the country. He said the AGI could cope with a 40-per cent increase in tariffs now and 20 per cent next year, adding that businesses could survive with that level of increase. The TUC also made it clear that workers were not against tariff increases but when the magnitude was high and it was done with no regard for the prevailing levels of income in the country, then there was cause for workers to vehemently oppose it. Mr. Asamoah said workers were also concerned about the confusion over the true magnitude of the increases announced by the PURC. He said while the media reported an 89 per cent increase in electricity tariffs and a 36 per cent in water tariffs, the PURC said the 89 percentage increase was a weighted average for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity and that the highest increase for residential consumers was 42 per cent. "However, there is evidence that some residential consumers who are currently on prepaid meters are actually experiencing over 150 per cent increase in their utility tariffs and some industrial establishments have reported over 200 per cent increase. These increases cannot be justified on any grounds when the national daily minimum wage was increased only by 17 per cent and public sector pay went up by only 10 per cent," he emphasized. Mr. Asamoah also criticised the lifeline residential waiver of 0 to 50 units allowed by the PURC as a "mistake and disingenuous". He said that was because previously the lifeline waiver was from 0 to 150 units and it was evident that most lifeline consumers lived in compound houses with one meter that did not give a true reflection of consumption rates. He said all that led to doubts about the technical competence of the PURC in the settling of tariffs. Mr Asamoah was grateful to the President for his intervention in calling the PURC to consider workers' demands and pledged the full support of workers in the downward review of utility tariffs "consistent with prevailing income levels in the country". A source at the PURC had earlier told the Daily Graphic that it was not very clear on which particular day the meeting would take place. Source: Daily Graphic