A member of Parliament’s Energy Committee, Edward Bawa, has expressed disappointment that the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) is sleeping on its core mandate of protecting the interest of utility consumers.
For serving as the body responsible for ensuring effective customer service by the power distribution companies to consumers, Mr. Bawa says the Commission has failed on alerting customers on the generation inefficiencies of the power distributors to help them plan their lives.
The PURC’s failure to serve customers that right in order to plan their activities in relation to availability of power is a huge disappointment on their part according to him.
He tells Alfred Ocansey on the KeyPoints on TV3 that the government’s claim of lacking precision in the availability of power to provide a timetable is indefensible.
“They (PURC) are supposed to be independent. They are supposed to be the balance between the utilities in terms of their investments and the customer in terms of their interests and whether their interests are protected. If I go and purchase power, the least PURC will insist on would be that I should also be given my due share. If I am not able to get that service, at least tell me how I can manage my life around your inefficiency.
“For Kwadwo Poku to indicate that they do not have precision in terms of the amount of power that is supposed to be shared and therefore they cannot bring [us a timetable] can never be untenable,” he stated.
He explained how the system has been working over time to ensure customers are in the know of generational availability.
“GRIDCo as part of their supply output for daily basis, they boot, during the course of the day, talk to all the generators, and ask for their availability; by 4 o’clock every day, they know the power that is available. So, if they know that they are going to get 10 megawatts, they are going to tell all the distributors, whether it is NEDCO or ECG, we can only supply you this based on your peak demand,” he said.
The Bongo Member of Parliament alleged that the ECG and the PURC have failed to provide the schedule for taking power from Ghanaians as a result of the President’s statement during the State of the Nation address on February 27 that “he has kept the lights on.”
Meanwhile, Chairman of the energy sub-committee of Dr. Bawumia’s campaign team, Kwadwo Nsafoa Poku, speaking on the same show Saturday, March 16, 2024, assured that the intermittent power outages otherwise known as ‘dumsor’ will be resolved by next week.
“…As at last night, the President was up so late and as early as 2am, they were crossing the Ts and dotting the Is. So, by next week, latest two weeks, the power crisis will be over,” he was confident.
