PURC urges ECG, NEDCO to organise intensive education
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), has asked Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCO) to carry out intensive educational campaign for frontline staff and credit vendors to address the post tariff implementation challenges.
The PURC have charged ECG and NEDCO to address challenges identified with retrospective billing on prepayment meters and submit a plan of action and investigate the cause of high failure rate of fuses and pre-paid meters at the Legon and Kwabenya districts by close of October 25.
This was made known at a media conference in Accra on Tuesday on Automatic Adjustment Formula and quality of service.
Mr Samuel Sarpong, Executive Secretary of PURC said during the post tariff implementation monitoring, the Commission identified challenges with the deployment of pre-paid meters installed at Bortianor and Teshie- Nungua and charged the ECG to address the challenges within two weeks.
The PURC said increase in tariffs should correspond with an improvement in quality of service and members would ensure that the following key benchmarks for attaining quality of service is adhered to.
Mr Sarpong said as part of the Commission’s future tariff strategy announced concurrently with the tariff increase on May 31, electricity and water tariffs would be reviewed periodically under the Automatic Adjustment Formula.
The objective of the formula is to review quarterly electricity and water tariffs to reflect changes in factors which affect the operations of utility service providers.
Mr Sarpong said AAF used to increase, decrease and maintain the levels of tariffs in the country and is not the panacea for any future price hikes in electricity and water services.
“The AAF is not a substitute to the major Tariff Review Process the Commission has just embarked on, “he said.
He said the formula was used after the 2010 major tariff review until June 2012 because of the accident on the West African Gas Pipeline.
The Commission, he said, had admonished the utility service providers to proactively develop and implement effective strategies aimed at reaching out to consumers.
The service providers are also encouraged to strengthen their call centres to be more interactive and professional in their dealings with the public and undertake cultural and performance based re-orientation of the frontline and field employees to develop human face to customer relations, Mr Sarpong said.
Source: GNA