The Eastern Regional Branch of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has organized a day’s forum at Suhum in the Eastern region for customers of utility providers to interact and let them know their inadequacies so that they can improve on their services.
The forum also enabled members of the public in the area to know the role the PURC plays in ensuring that customers get the best for whatever services utility providers give to them.
The Eastern regional manager of the PURC, Jude Aduamoah-Addo said the regional office, which was opened in October last year, has had a number of complaints from customers in the region, stressing that it tells them that complaints offices of the utility providers like Electricity Company of Ghana and Ghana Water Company Limited have not been treating complaints by customers with urgency.
He said it was important for service providers to bridge the relationship between them and their clients by regularly interacting with them to know their problems and for the clients to also get to know about their challenges and the measures being put in place to address those challenges.
He said his outfit wants to help providers and customers appreciate each other better.
Mr. Aduamoah-Addo pointed out that clients need to be given quality services for what they pay for, stressing that numerous complaints of poor quality of services was worrisome.
The complaints of high electricity and water bills as well as unnecessary disruption of services provided were not satisfactory.
There were particular complaints about the flat billing by the Ghana Water Company Ltd which customers described as unfair since it was not commensurate with services they receive.
The Eastern regional manager of PURC however advised the Ghana Water Company to change from flat rate billing to metering billing so that customers would fully benefit.
 From Thomas Fosu Jnr, Suhum
