Electricity and water consumers in the Ho Municipality yesterday expressed concern about the poor quality by the utility providers, despite the upward adjustment of tariffs by the two companies.
They mentioned power outages which was affecting businesses on the part of ECG and the delay of GWCL technicians in fixing burst pipes which leak volumes of potable water resulting to a loss in revenue, and with both companies failure to deliver printed utility bills to customers on time.
The customers raised these concerns at the Volta Region Customer Service Clinic -2022 organised by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) in Ho yesterday.
The clinic was organised to enable utility providers to educate consumers on services provided and the recent approved tariffs to enable consumers to make known their concerns and addressed them.
The event under the theme: “Celebrating 25 years of Utility Regulatory in Ghana brought consumers from all over the municipality.”
The Executive Secretary of PURC, Dr Ishmael Ackah, in a speech said that it was important to always engage consumers of what they do so that they become abreast with their functions as a Commission.
He said as a regulatory body, their duty was to make sure they satisfied both the consumers well, and also the service providers to give better services to consumers.
Dr Ackah said “we are there to receive complaints but they should go through the district offices to the region and if the customer is still not satisfied before PURC would take it over.”
He urged consumers of both electricity and water to pay their bills promptly so that the companies could generate the needed revenue to improve the system, and delight customers in several ways.
Dr Ackah expressed gratitude to the participants for the support given to PURC in addressing some of the challenges in the utility sector.
He assured that his outfit would continue to undertake a comprehensive reforms both in the power and water sector that would be beneficial to consumers.
Mr Michael Edwin Brefo Acting General Manager/ Regulatory Management of ECG in his presentation took participants through complaint management process, New tariff structure, Operations and challenges.
He noted that ECG was putting up many district office complexes across the country to help address challenges of customers.
He warned people who continue to temper with their transformers to put a stop to that anyone caught would face the law.
Mr Philip Agbezudor, PURC, Volta Regional Manager in his remarks encouraged customers to pay their bills on time as that will also permit them from accumulating their bills.
FROM KAFUI GATI, HO
