Regulatory Com-mission (PURC), last year, recovered up to GH¢8 million in com-pensation and refund for consumers of elec-tricity and water.
According to the commission, it resolved 2,549 complaints from consumers of electricity and water, under its Complaint Resolution mechanisms.
Nana Yaa Akyempim Jantuah, Director, Public Relations and External Affairs of PURC, said in a statement issued in Accra yesterday that the recoveries included compensation for a burnt house, which attracted a compensatory amount of GH¢185,000, and a company whose disputed bill was reduced from GH¢8,012,588.09 to GH¢1,440,676.
It listed the complaints received as billing (over-billing), metering (acquisition and faulty meters); unlawful and wrongful disconnections, outages associated with faults; quality of service (no flow of water, low voltage, voltage fluctuations, burst pipes etc.) and damaged equipment.
“Consumers of electricity and water are encouraged to complain to the public utility in the first instance, but where a complaint made directly to a utility is not satisfactorily dealt with by the service provider, the complaint must be redirected to the Commission for an appropriate redress,” it stated.
The statement said complaints to the Commission might be written or oral, adding that “any Public Utility that contravenes the provisions of the Public Utilities (Complaints Procedure) Regulations 2000(LI1665) will be liable to pay the prescribed penalty units or imprisonment for one year or both.’
Under the PURC Act 1997(Act 538), the Commission might apply to the High Court for the enforcement of its decisions and directions.
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