PURC to get tough on utility service providers

Accra, June 11, GNA - The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has asked utility service providers to submit by Friday their action plans and timelines for improving the poor service that they are delivering to the public.

The submission of the plans and the period within which they would be executed would serve as the basis for the PURC to begin imposing penalty for poor service delivery.

Mr Stephen Adu, the Executive Secretary of the Commission, said the regulator would no longer accept poor quality service from the utility service providers.

The service providers are Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Volta River Authority (VRA), Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO) and Ghana Water Company Limited.

"We demand high standards of service from the utility service providers. We will not compromise on quality and the targets set any provider that fails to meet PURC's target would face penalty," he told a meeting of the service providers in Accra.

The meeting was held to enable ECG, VRA, GRIDCO and Ghana Water Company Limited to present to PURC their short, medium and long-term plans to improve operational performance. Mr Adu said although the Commission could accept some lapses, the provision and reliability of service in the last few months had not been the best.

Mr Kirk Kofie, VRA Deputy Chief Executive, said VRA had no difficulty generating adequate power to be distributed to the public, adding that supply was well above demand. Available generation by VRA is about 1,580 mega watts while demand stands at 1,250 megawatts.

He said various projects were being undertaken to ensure reliability of supply into the future. The utility service providers were unanimous that a major bottleneck to quality service delivery was funds to buy required equipment to enhance service.

They argued that years of reliance on the World Bank for financing projects had not helped in speeding up work as the processes to acquire the funds were usually cumbersome and time-consuming. Mr kofie said VRA plans to convert one of the units of the Takoradi thermal plant to run on gas, since it offered relatively cheaper cost of generation.

He said discussions are also underway to restore and ensure sustainable supply of gas from the West African Gas Pipeline Project. There are also plans to increase VRA shareholdings in TICO from the current level of 10 percent.

Mr Bernard Modey, a System Maintenance Manager of GRIDCO, said his outfit would by this weekend complete the installation of a 66MVA transformer to replace the damaged 33MVA at its Achimota station and expressed the hope that this would end the unreliable service. The Acting Managing Director of Ghana Water Company Limited, Mr Kweku Botwe, underscored the need to rehabilitate the existing water facilities such as pumping machines and motors to ensure free flow of water.

He said a new water plant would be installed at Teshie to produce four million gallons of water to Teshie community and its environs by September.

"We will try to stabilize water delivery in the country," he said. Mr Gabriel Gbadago, Acting Director of Operations at ECG, said his outfit is planning to undertake a number of projects to combat the phenomenon of unplanned outages in its system. ECG, he said, would among other things create additional feeder, and replace weak and undersized paper insulated cables to ensure efficient power delivery. 11 June 09