On September 25, the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced a 78.9 per cent increment in electricity and 52 per cent for water, effective October 1, this year.
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is investing $20 million to upgrade its Data systems and installations to minimize the frequency and duration of power outages confronting consumers.
A mobile transformers and substations have been procured and deployed to all regional and district offices to support the network?s operations, as a result complement the project.
In an news conference held in Accra, last-Friday, on the aftermath of the recent approved development of the average increase of electricity tariffs, the Officer in-charge of Regulation and Government Affairs of the ECG, Mr Daniel Azu, said the ECG was doing all it could to ensure improved availability and accessibility of its services and advice consumer over energy conservation cause by so doing can reduce bills by about 30%.
To ensure improved availability and accessibility to its services, Mr Azu said ECG was introducing 24-hour vending systems, including the establishment of more district offices and customer centres, to address customer complaints and challenges.
He added that the company was also replacing all 33Kv obsolete switch gears at the primary substations in the Accra metropolis at the cost ?13million.
Since the tariff increases, a section of the public has been calling for improvement in the quality of service by the providers, while others have asked for a reduction of the new tariffs.
Responding to such concerns, Mr Azu said, the company was implementing strategies to ensure that there was significant improvement in electricity distribution services.
As part of the strategy, he said the ECG was constructing a number of bulk supply points, primary and secondary substations together with interconnectivity high voltage, medium and low voltage lines to properly distribute electricity.
To ensure quality human relations between staff and the company?s customers, he said, management was monitoring the attitude of its employees by installing CCTV cameras at the front-end of its offices.
Touching on the tariffs, Mr Azu explained that the cost of production had gone up, making the increase in electricity tariffs necessary to enable the company to recover part of its operational cost.
The new tariff increased the distribution service charge ( which is the component that went to the ECG) from 9.76 pesewas per unit to 14.72 pesewas per unit, representing an increase of 50 per cent.
Though ECG requested for 214 per cent increment, Mr Azu indicated that the company would be content with what was approved by the PURC.
He urged all customers who had any form of challenge since the implementation of the new tariffs to report to the nearest customer service centre for redress and pleaded with the general public assist the company to eradicating illegal connection from the system or contact us on 0302662176.
