PURC resolves all Upper West first-quarter complaints

Consumers within the Upper West Region have dragged service providers in the region before the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), for poor quality service delivery.

During the first quarter of the year, the commission received a total of 247 complaints against the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) and Ghana Water Limited (GWL).

The majority of the complaints were about poor quality of service to the consumers.

Resolution

In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Upper West Regional Manager of PURC, Abdul-Wadud Ali, said all the complaints had been amicably resolved by the commission.

While the complaints against NEDCo bordered on power outages, those against GWL were over the non-availability of water.

Out of the 247 complaints, 218 were against NEDCo, representing 88 per cent of the complaints, while those against GWL were 29, representing 12 per cent of the cases.

He said the first quarter of this year saw a 13 per cent reduction in cases for the same period last year.

In 2024, Mr Ali said the commission recorded a total of 285 cases for the first quarter and believed that the reduction was an indication of improvement in service delivery in the region.

Engagements

As part of its efforts to educate consumers on the rights and responsibilities and the mandate of the commission, the regional manager said the commission had initiated what it called the Regulatory Centre Programme, aimed at engaging the stakeholders and the media to foster a closer collaboration for information sharing.

The initiative, he said, was also to provide the media with first-hand information to engender understanding and avoid inflammatory reportage.

It is also to allow the service providers to share their challenges and inform the consumers on how they are resolving these challenges.

At the last encounter, which was held in April, Mr Ali said some of the challenges of NEDCo, which affected their service delivery included theft of their overhead cables by scrap dealers, interference in the network by unauthorised persons and resistance from communities when maintenance teams were carrying out vegetation control.

He said the company lost as many as 64 high-tension poles during the rainstorm last month, which would have a great impact on their service delivery in the region.

For GWL, he said their main challenge had been the theft of water meters, erratic power supply and illegal connections leading to loss of revenue.

Mr Ali said although it was the right of the consumers to demand quality service from the providers, they owed it as a responsibility to pay for the services.

He, therefore, called on consumers to promptly pay their bills to enable the service providers to have the means to provide them with the needed quality service.