The directive by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to suspend the usage of its new billing software has been described by the African Centre for Energy Policy as a public relations (PR) gimmick.

The PURC said the directive followed numerous complaints received from consumers of electricity regarding issues of overbilling.

Mr Benjamin Boakye, Deputy Executive Director of ACEP has explained that the ECG was established by law, which spells out clearly its mandates and functions, hence the state power distributor should be made to face the law if it has violated the laws, rather than being given a directive.

“If you have a law that says if someone is overbilled, ECG has to compensate the person or refund the overbilled amount, that should be your first port of call and then you order ECG to rectify the problem,” he said, adding: “…The order was more or less a PR statement that was put out there that cannot have been implemented.

“ECG cannot implement the order. They can’t suspend the system; it is like telling everybody to go and sleep in darkness. So, it was not an implementable directive that PURC issued.”

Mr Boakye, who was speaking on the Ghana Report on Viasat 1 Monday May 30, noted that: “If ECG has erred, let them face the consequences, punish them, get them to work to fix the problem quickly.”

Meanwhile, Dr Steve Manteaw, Campaign Coordinator for the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) has said the PURC has failed to fulfil its core mandate of ensuring that meters that are installed by ECG are functional.

He told journalists on Monday that: “I regret that the PURC has disappointed Ghanaians so much. All they have been doing since I have come to know that organisation is regulating prices and fixing prices. …The PURC has the mandate to ensure that these meters that are installed are reading correctly. But they haven’t done that and that is part of the reason we are having these faulty billings.”

He added: “There is more to their function than just regulating prices. They have to regulate standards, they have to regulate quality. They have to ensure that consumers get value for their money such that one would expect that when the ECG brings in the meters, they will be submitted to the [Ghana] Standards [Authority] for independent calibration before being installed and the institution that must ensure that this happens is the PURC.”

Dr Manteaw further suggested that the PURC should emulate the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) that conducts routine checks at fuel stations to ensure fuel pumps are properly calibrated after the Standards Authority’s initial calibration.

“I think the only institution that appears to be doing the right thing, which is combining price regulation with quality regulation and trying to ensure that we don’t have monopolistic tendencies in the industry, is the National Petroleum Authority. PURC, in particular, only focuses on prices and doesn’t care a hoot about the quality of services consumers are receiving,” he said.