Address customers' concerns within hours, not days - Energy minister directs ECG

The Minister of State at the Ministry of Energy, Herbert Krapa, has charged the management of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to deal with recalcitrant staff whose activities negate efforts to provide customers with prompt and quality services.

“Heads must roll when we find that persistently some people are just making it difficult for us [ECG] to provide quality, affordable and efficient service to our customers and the Ghanaian people”, he said and added that however many of the staff who are going the extra mile to provide excellent service must be rewarded for others to emulate.

Krapa made the call when he visited the Customer Services Office of ECG in Accra East to as he puts it “to echo the frustrations of ECG customers across the country so that together we can work to improve the process.”

Krapa was accompanied by Deputy Minister, Collins Adomako-Mensah; Wilhelmina Asamoah Chief Director; Solomon Adjettey, Director of Power and Isaac Nsarko Biney Director of PPBME.

During the briefing, it came to light that the ECG management was surprised and could not tell how middlemen, known as ‘goro boys’, can get the contact details of customers who apply for meters through the ECG online process and try to dupe such customers.

In the course of the interaction, the minister and his deputy randomly placed a call to the ECG complaint centre and to the hearing of the entire gathering the operator interacted with the deputy minister in a professional manner.

Reacting, Krapa described the response as “very positive and that the gentleman deserves a pay rise” adding that people should be rewarded for doing the right but recalcitrant ones should be sanctioned.”

Krapa who until his appointment as the Minister of State was the Deputy Minister of Energy and the Board Chairman of ECG, explained that the sentiments of customers are an indication that the trust they had for the service provider, ECG was “fast dissipating.”

Krapa said customers “cannot accept ECG taking forever or too long in resolving the complaints and challenges of customers.”

He advised that ensuring that people have access to ECG promptly and resolving their problems efficiently and timelessly was the only way that the ECG could win back the trust of its customers and Ghanaians in general.

Although ECG has several social media platforms for providing services and taking complaints and feedback from customers, the minister encouraged the management to use both traditional and modern media including the Information Services Department, and town hall meetings to engage customers so that those who are not resorting to the use of the social media will be aware of their services.

He added that educating the customers would also prevent situations where some people use the services of Goro Boys.

Regarding what he referred to as “the elephant in the room” the Minister said the acquisition of metres continues to attract more complaints with others ready to pay for meters that are for free, aside from paying for the legitimate service charges which are not for sale.

He said he was aware of the efforts by the company to clear the backlog of over one million metres which had come about as a result of new customers, faulty metres and overaged ones and encouraged the company to speed up the efforts at providing the metres.

Herbert Krapa indicated that the process for acquiring the metre must be compressed to avoid duplication, all with the view to make the process simple and accessible to many customers.

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