The Eastern Regional Office of PURC organized a Stakeholder engagement on March 13, 2024 with consumers, the Media, and Utility Service Providers at Asamankese, the capital of West Akim Municipal Area. The meeting was held under the theme: Breakfast Meeting with the Commission Stakeholders. The objective of the program was to unveil the functions of the Commission, use of the PURC tariff reckoner, and the PURC Electricity Consumption Estimator (PECE) to the Commission’s Stakeholders.
The program is part of a collaborative effort between the Commission and the regulated utilities specifically, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Ghana Water Limited (GWL). The program is aimed at ensuring the protection of interests consumers and the utility service providers at all times and to bring the services provided by these utilities to the doorsteps of consumers. This is in line with the Commission’s 2024 theme “Year of Strategic Impact”, which is anchored on Self Improvement, Transparency, Enforcement, and Proactiveness (STEP).
The Eastern Regional Manager of PURC, Mr. Jude Aduamoah-Addo, sensitized consumers on the establishment of the Commission, its mandate, core functions, tariff review processes, and energy conservation tips. The Regional Manager unveiled the PURC Tariff Reckoner and PECE to the consumers and conscientized them to embrace its use to enable them estimate their average consumption and to help gauge the energy efficiency of their appliances.
The Municipal Chief Executive Officer for West Akim Municipal Assembly, Hon. Seth Oduro Boadu, was represented by a delegation from his office. The MCE expressed his appreciation to the Commission for the initiative to provide systems that assist customers with a transparent way of computing and deducing their bills. He extended an invitation to the Commission to attend the inaugural ceremony of their Assembly Members, which takes place on March 14, 2024, and to cease the opportunity to educate the members on the use of the PURC tariff reckoner and the PECE applications.
The Easter Regional Public Relations Officer for ECG, Mr. Emmanuel Halm, educated consumers on new service connections (NSC), power outage situations, billing cycle, and the ECG power app. The Regional Quality Assurance Manager of GWL, Mr. Manuel Tetteh, also took participants through the quality of water supply, water conservation, and challenges that were hindering GWL’s operations and distribution networks in the district and the entire region.
During the engagement, questions and concerns centered on bulk bills, non-delivery of bills, billing anomalies, estimated and actual bills, non-reflection of payment, unlawful disconnections, burnt poles, theft of copper wires from transformers, and occurrences of poor quality of water among others. Various submissions were made to address concerns raised by consumers and the complainants were encouraged to escalate all unresolved complaints to the attention of the Commission for redress.
The participants in attendance were the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ghana National Tailors and Dress Makers Association (GNTDA), National Association of Hairdressers and Beauticians, Civic Unions, Market Women, Assembly Men and general residents who live within the municipality. Media houses in attendance were: Daily Graphic, UTV, Peace FM, and Nkunim FM. The participants were assisted with downloading the Tariff Reckoner App during the session and shown how to access the PECE App on the Commission’s Website.
The Commission recommended that ECG should consider consumers in remote areas that cannot access the ECG power apps and cashless billing systems and provide them with alternative ways through which they can receive their bills and make direct payments into their accounts. The participants expressed their satisfaction to the Commission for providing them with alternative measures of double-checking the authenticity of their bills.
