When the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced increases in utility tariffs about two months ago, it generated mixed reactions.
While there appeared to be consensus across the social spectrum on an upward adjustment in tariffs, the area of controversy centred around the quantum of the increases.
Even as most vulnerable sections of society were shielded from the increases with zero-rated tariffs, users in other categories, principally commercial or business concerns, raised the issue of affordability and the adverse effects the increases would have on their operations.
Following those and other developments in the industry, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the vanguard organisation for working people, called on the PURC to review the rates, failing which it would initiate nation-wide demonstrations.
We are happy that today, following a meeting between the leadership of organised labour and President John Evans Atta Mills at the Castle, Osu, at the weekend, positive dialogue and good sense have prevailed and the PURC has been urged to engage the TUC to help arrive at an amicable resolution of the matter via a possible downward review of the tariffs.
This has subsequently rendered unnecessary the threat of demonstrations and strikes by the TUC which, undoubtedly, would have undermined the industrial peace and harmony the country has enjoyed for some time now.
We have been an eloquent champion of the resort to dialogue as a means for the amicable resolution of disputes because it almost always yields positive and durable dividends that embody the attributes of win-win for all stakeholders.
We commend the President and the leadership of the TUC for this demonstration of leadership and foresight because the reverse could have resulted in some form of social strive and tension, the loss of considerable hours of productivity and a reduction in our wealth-creating momentum which has recently been on the increase.
This is not to forget that such a development would have undermined the existing cordial and mutually beneficial relationship between organised labour and the government as active partners in the national development effort designed to secure a better nation and improved livelihoods for the people.
We wish to appeal to both the PURC and the TUC to enter these talks not from entrenched positions cast in iron but with flexibility and pragmatism anchored on the supreme national interest.
This, among others, calls for the trading of compromises which, inter alia, will ensure the prevalence of the interest and aspirations of not only the parties involved but also the rest of society who are as much stakeholders as the two parties are.
While we would expect a conclusion that will further enhance the growth and prospects of our business concerns, especially small and medium-scale enterprises, we also wish to urge that sight should not be lost of the interest of large sections of our underprivileged people who live in compound houses in the urban centres and cannot benefit from the zero-rated tariffs for the vulnerable because they cannot have separate meters for electricity and water.
We call on the PURC to endeavour to prevail on the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to provide these meters to such people to help bring them the much needed relief.
We also take note that in making this move, the government has not issued clear directives to the PURC as to what position it should take, since doing so may undermine the independence of the utility body, even as we are the first to admit that the government as the body with oversight responsibility for the PURC and, as the prime promoter of social peace, order and harmony, has a key role to play in such matters.
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