The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) says it is unhappy with the 1% upward tariff adjustment granted by PURC, which it says falls short of what is needed to operate efficiently and profitably -- and will thus push for a 21% increase.

According to the Communications Manager Stanley Martey, “1 percent is not what we are looking for; we want 21% to be able to improve on service. We will continue to negotiate with the stakeholders for an upward increase”.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has announced a 1.06 percent increase in water tariffs, as well as an electricity increase of 2.63 percent for the second quarter of 2015, starting from April 1. The increment has been met with an intense public outcry amid irregular water supply caused by the ongoing energy crisis.

In 2014, the GWCL was denied a 4.54% increase as a form of a penalty during the fourth quarter due to the non-compliance with Regulatory Directive, but fortunately they have fulfilled the benchmark. Therefore, the Commission has released for implementation effective April 1, 2015 the gazetted water tariff for the fourth quarter of 2014.

“We want to make GWCL profitable and also fashion ways to reduce cost in the long-term, that is why we have signed a performance contract with government,” he explained.

To this end, the GWCL has earmarked a short- to long-term plan to transform and improve service delivery, dubbed the High Impact Performance Improvement Programme (HIPIP) -- under which a performance-based reward and sanction system will underpin management and operation of the company.

The 100-day HIPIP is aimed at turning GWCL into a profitable utility company in 100 days while meeting the aspirations of all its customers.

It intends to achieve these strategies through key thematic areas: such as revenue generation, non-revenue water, cost optimisation, customer care and branding, ICT and innovation among others.

With this initiative, the company anticipates that billing and collection will rise from an average monthly GH?23,250m and GH?17,098m respectively in 2015 to GH?35,005m with regard to billing, and over GH?35,005m in respect of collection within one hundred days.