The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) in 2021 received 10,987 complaints from both consumers and utility service providers, from which it resolved 10,701, representing 97.3.
These resolved complaints resulted in the recovery of GH¢6.3 million to both consumers and utility service providers, thus the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).
This was disclosed at a capacity building workshop held for the PURC media fellowship at Prampram in the Greater Accra Region last Saturday.
The Executive Secretary of the PURC, Dr Ishmael Ackah, said the training is to equip the media to ask critical questions during the reviews of tariffs.
He noted that the Commission is digitising all of its processes to help make work easier for all stakeholders.
The Director of Regional Operations at the Commission, Alhaji Abukari Jabaru, said out of the more than GH¢6.3million recovered, GH¢5,778,379.20p went to consumers while GH¢548,383 for the utility service providers.
He said the Commission recouped the amounts for both consumers and utility service providers due to effecient complaints investigations, adding that most of complaints came from overbilling, bulk billing, damages caused by the utilities and non-payment of bills.
The 2021 complaints were an increase from 7,067 in 2021, representing an increase of 55.47% per cent.
Alhaji Jabaru said the increase was due to the addition of the number of regional offices of the Commission and the increase in WhatsApp platforms for lodging complaints.
ECG tops the list of complaints
Alhaji Jabaru said complaints against the ECG were 6,470, out of which 6,343 were resolved, representing 98.04%.
The GWCL followed with 1,398 complaints from which the Commission resolved 1,380,representing 98.71%.
He added that complaints against NEDCo were 2,995 and the PURC resolved 2,854 of its complaints,representing 95.29%. For complaints against consumers, the PURC received 147 and all.
65.53% of complaints on billing were against ECG
Alhaji Jabaru said complainants lodged complaints on the various issues to the Commission, which were broadly classified into damaged property, unlawful disconnection, payments, quality of service, metering, and billing.
Except for complaints on payments, the ECG topped complaints in all issues of complaints with 65.53% of billing lodged against ECG, 23.84% lodged against NEDCo, and 10.63% against GWCL.
For metering complaints, 78.31% was lodged against ECG, 19.77% lodged against NEDCo, and 1.92 lodged against GWCL.
For complaints on the quality of service, 56.72% was lodged against the ECG, 29.13% lodged against NEDCo and 14.15% lodged against GWCL.
Complaints on consumers for payments were 46.24%, with ECG following closely with 43.98%; 5.6% of such complaints were lodged against NEDCo and 4.14% lodged against GWCL.
For unlawful disconnection, 60.74% of complaints came against ECG, 25.77% came against NEDCo, 12.88% were against GWCL and 0.61 per cent were lodged against consumers.
For complaints on damaged property, 71.43% were lodged against the ECG, and 28.57% were lodged against NEDCo. The GWCL and consumers had no complaints lodged against them.
Complaints lodged via electronic media topped the medium of complaints
Alhaji Jabaru said complaints lodged via electronic media, that is WhatsApp, constituted 49.11 per cent. Field complaints constituted 23.15% and phone-ins constituted 17.19%.
Walk-in, written complaints, consumer service committee and toll-free constituted 5.14%, 3.67%, 1.60% and 0.14% respectively.
Source: Julius K. SATSI || The Finder, Prampram