The Chairman of the Food and Beverage Association of Ghana (FABAG), Reverend John Awuni, used a national television appearance on Monday to restate his association’s position that Ghana’s electricity tariff structure has become one of the most damaging barriers to domestic manufacturing, and that increasing tariffs to cover utility inefficiency reverses the economic logic entirely.
Speaking on TV3’s Business Focus on Monday, February 23, 2026, Awuni argued that the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have repeatedly sought and received tariff approvals without demonstrating the operational reforms that would justify higher prices. He insisted the solution to the energy sector’s financial problems lies in tightening revenue collection and eliminating loss and theft, not in transferring the cost of mismanagement onto industries and households.
The 9.86% electricity tariff increase that took effect on January 1, 2026, together with a 15.92% rise in water tariffs, formed part of the PURC’s Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) framework covering the 2026 to 2030 period, which the Commission said followed investment hearings, regional consultations, and macroeconomic assessments. FABAG has consistently rejected those adjustments as unjustified in the absence of measurable performance improvements by ECG.
Awuni has cited the 2024 Auditor-General’s Report, which found that ECG lost 32% of all electricity purchased that year, nearly a third above the PURC’s approved distribution loss benchmark of 21%. Between August 2023 and July 2024, ECG collected only 43% of the total revenue it billed, despite recording earnings of GH¢11.5 billion, of which GH¢8.6 billion was officially declared, leaving a catastrophic revenue shortfall that tariff increases alone cannot close.
Awuni proposed a formal Performance Compact between the Ministry of Finance, PURC, the Energy Commission, and ECG, signed under presidential authority, to bind the utility to quarterly measurable loss reduction targets before any further tariff adjustment is considered. He cited Uganda’s power sector turnaround, where distribution losses fell from 38% in 2005 to 16% by 2016, as evidence that reform rather than revenue extraction is the proven path to sustainability.
The remarks carry sharper urgency given the government’s stated flagship agenda. Awuni warned directly that the 24-hour economy initiative cannot succeed without affordable and reliable power, arguing that if industries cannot sustain electricity costs, production will contract, businesses will shut, and unemployment will rise, directly undermining the core objective of industrial expansion the government has committed to.
FABAG has been joined in its campaign by the Ghana Plastic Manufacturers’ Association (GPMA) and the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), whose president, Joseph Obeng, warned that persistently high tariffs could push manufacturers to relocate operations to neighbouring Togo or Burkina Faso and re-import finished products into Ghana, making the country an importer rather than a producer of its own manufactured goods.
