The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission [PURC], has ordered the Electricity Company of Ghana [ECG], to compensate to the 41,000 customers who struggled to purchase prepaid credit for several days, after the servers dedicated to the pre-paid system failed.
The compensation is to come in the form of “one-time electricity credit” in February 2018, and it is expected to cost the ECG GHc 1,927,920.45.
[contextly_sidebar id=”GXNR4IpFGYcqHRPud1NfTy4z38avKo27″]This system failure compelled droves of customers from Korle Bu, Dansoman, Kaneshie and Achimota to mass up at the Head Office of ECG near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra, in a bid to have their problems resolved.
A power outage was later established to be the cause of the system failure.
The PURC in its preliminary investigations, suggested that the ECG’s database was affected by a server power supply failure, which affected the ECG database hence making it very difficult for customers within the affected areas to purchase power.
After an earlier warning that the ECG could face sanctions, the PURC in a statement has now cited the power distributor’s inability to provide facilities for vending electricity credit to customers, and the “slow response to customers and the public.”
The PURC also said there was a “late and unsatisfactory response to related regulatory queries.”
After a probe of the matter using data submitted by the ECG, the PURC said it “arrived at the conclusion that there was a violation on the part of the ECG.”
“ECG has therefore been ordered to pay compensation to its affected customers for losses suffered as a show of good customer service. The compensation is based on the average energy lost to each customer as a result of the prepaid failure for 10 days, and does not affect the service charged or other charges,” the PURC explained further.
The ECG is expected to provide evidence of the compensation to the PURC by March 1, 2018.
Find the full PURC statement here
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana