Tariff Hikes Will Cancel Out Workers’ 9% Pay Rise
The Trades Union Congress (TUC)–Ghana has issued a sharp warning to government after the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced fresh utility tariff increases—9.8% for electricity and 15.9% for water—set to take effect on January 1, 2026.
According to the TUC, the timing and scale of the increases amount to a direct attack on workers’ livelihoods, especially as they coincide with the already modest 9% adjustment in the National Daily Minimum Wage and Base Pay scheduled for the same day.
The union says workers were already bruised from 2025, a year in which wages increased by only 10% while electricity tariffs jumped by more than 18%. With inflation and the cost of living still biting, the new hikes feel like “a sudden blow disguised as a New Year gift.”
TUC argues that the 2026 increments effectively neutralise the entire 9% wage adjustment, leaving workers with no real improvement in income. “This is not a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul,” the statement said. “It is government taking back with force what it pretended to give with the other hand.”
Describing the increases as insensitive and unjustifiable, the TUC has served notice that it will not accept the new tariffs unless government returns to the negotiation table to revise and enhance the 2026 wage adjustment.
Anything short of this, the union cautions, will trigger nationwide mobilisation of workers to resist the new tariff regime.
The TUC and Organised Labour will hold a press conference on Monday, December 8, 2025, to outline their concerns in detail and announce the industrial actions they intend to pursue if government fails to reconsider the policy.
