UE/R: PURC partners media to enhance service delivery
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has called for a robust media collaboration to enhance services delivery to the public.
The commission says with strengthened media collaboration, it has no iota of doubt that the public will receive the needed education on their rights and responsibilities as far as honouring their utility bills is concerned.
Addressing a section of journalists at a media engagement programmme in Bolgatanga, capital of the Upper East Region, the Regional Manager for PURC, Seth Kponyo, said the relationship between consumers and service providers was a “symbiotic one,” and the media must endeavour to be ambassadors of projecting the commission, thus ensuring the issues about PURC were prominently featured in their reports.
He indicated that because of the proactiveness of the commission on rigorous public education activities, complaints management, and monitoring activities, complaints from both consumers and service providers, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), had reduced significantly over the years.
Touching on complaint statistics since 2022, Pious Ikililu Abdulai, Complaints officer, revealed that “PURC received a total complaints of 705 in 2022 and it increased to 884 in 2023 (an increase of 179).
“However, following our proactiveness in mediation, we managed to decrease the complaints to 639 in 2024 (a decrease of 245)”.
The achievement chalked, the manager of the commission in the region believes, will be retained and improved if the media and other stakeholders join hands to entreat the public to cooperate with the service providers.
He declared 2025 as an action year for some individuals in the region who engaged in illegal connections, illegal tampering with meters and transformers and other utility equipment.
Mr Kponyo challenged the media and some decent folks in communities where these illegal activities were going on, to endeavour to report the miscreants so they were made to face the law.
The damage on metres and transformers, he said, had cost utility service providers millions of Ghana Cedis, hence their thuggish actions must not go unpunished.
He also added that the commission had identified some areas in both North East and Upper East regions that had gained notoriety in rampant illegal connections, and that, authorities were taking measures to tackle it head-on.
FROM FRANCIS DABRE DABANG, BOLGATANGA
