General News of Tuesday, 5 July 2016
Source: adomonline.com
National Organizer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu, has described as ‘cheap populism’ the decision by government to subsidies electricity for domestic users.
The new proposed subsidy which is expected to cost government 300 million cedis comes after claims of overbilling by consumers of electricity.
President John Mahama announced government will reduce the prices of electricity beginning July 2016.The government then proceeded to introduce a new subsidy to cushion the consumers.
In line with that, the Electricity Company of Ghana on Monday revised its tariff to reflect the subsidy introduced by the government.
But John Boadu in an interview on Adom News said the Mahama-led government has rather shot itself in the foot with the introduction of subsidy.
He stated that, the moved has exposed the ruling National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) intent to do anything possible to remain in power.
Mr. Boadu who also doubles as the General Secretary of the NPP believes Ghanaians who have paid exorbitant electricity bills have been shortchanged.
The NPP man was however skeptical at its implementation since according to him, the subsidy has neither been budgeted for in the 2016 budget estimate nor the supplementary budget.