According to her, the commission expresses worry about the frequent power blackouts in the country saying that there should be a proper communication mechanism in place before an area is unexpectedly cut off power supply. She attributed the cause of this standoff to the dawdling manner in which the utility service providers operate.
"The issue is about speedy response to fault and also communication. If an area is going to experience an outage or they have experienced an outage, there should be some kind of communication to the people for them to know that our power has gone off for such and such a reason", she said.
Interacting with the Big bite morning show host, Abena Asiedua, on Xfm 95.1, the PURC Public Relations Director explained that in order to address the water shortages as well as the electricity constraints, the commission ensures that there is enough monitoring over the companies in charge of these utilities.
She said that the PURC supervises the companies to set up the necessary structures and also ensure that unfortunate occurrences of this defect are avoided.
"...all the installation of the utility, the equipment, the transformers; we go and see how these equipment are performing. We also collect reports on how their performance is. We also have meetings with them..."
She further disclosed that ECG, GWCL and other utility-based agencies, under the instruction of PURC, are obliged to compensate consumers who lose their items due to the unexpected failures.
Nana Yaa Jantua affirmed that some consumers have already been compensated with the utility service providers refunding money to over-billed consumers and therefore asked all consumers to follow suit when their items become defective due to the unfortunate utility faults.
She said whenever this occurs, victimized consumers should report to the Public Utility Regulatory Commission which will make sure they are compensated.
She advised consumers to "ask value for money" and not perceive the services of the Electricity Company, Ghana Water Company, Transmission Company as well as the other utility companies as "favour" since the companies owe them a duty.
Adding to the Commission's roles, she noted that ECG is an interface with the consumers and if the company defaults in its services, it behooves on the commission to sanction them to effectively back up in their services to the country.
Spelling out the rights of the consumers, the PURC Public Relations and External Affairs Director, Nana Yaa Jantua, discounted actions by the utility service providers to disconnect a consumer who is purported to be indebted to them due to his or her inability to foot the bill.
"Even if you owe, there should be a payment plan between you and the utility service provider. They can't just disconnect you.” she said.
She however explained that though there are outages, the performance of the Electricity Company, Ghana Water Company together with the other utility service providers should not be undermined.
Story by Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/ Xfm 95.1/ Accra/ Ghana
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