ECG Chaos: Over 2000 customers affected – PURC

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has said that over 2000 clients of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) are having difficulty getting a refill due to server challenges.

“Data obtained from ECG indicates that over 2000 customers out of a total of 300,000 on the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) payment system are affected,” a statement signed by PURC Executive Secretary Mrs Mami Dufie Ofori indicated on Thursday, 7 December.

The commission said it had taken note of the complaints by clients within the Accra West Region concerning their difficulty to refill.

PURC said after investigations, they have ordered ECG to “immediately augment its help desks in all affected district offices to deal with the large number of customers and inform the public of the measures being undertaken to resolve the problem”.

Additionally, PURC has “issued initial time-bound directives to ECG to submit details of its emergency response measures carried out”.

ECG has also been issued with a directive “requesting the company to show cause in respect of monetary penalties to be imposed with a response deadline of December 8, 2017 in accordance with due process”.

The commission further plans to undertake comprehensive independent investigations into ECG’s IT infrastructure to ascertain the root cause of the system failure which will inform further regulatory actions.

As early as 3am, hundreds of customers were seen at some ECG offices in long, winding queues waiting for their turn to purchase prepaid credit.

Some of the frustrated individuals told Accra100.5FM’s Nana Amoako Gyampah that they have been unable to purchase prepaid credit from ECG for days.

They called for government’s intervention.