What Kpong Water Works Says about Ghana's Public Service--it's a +1!

Two weekends ago, we spent the better part of the weekend trekking Accra far and wide to get sachet water to complement the water that we had(but had run out) due to water works on the Kpong Treatment Plant.

Now up until that time, I had not taken the issue of Kpong Treatment plant so seriously, but I guess when the crunch came, reality was very different.

In essence, transmission of water to the Eastern and Central part of the metropolis was cut, and parts of Accra that were affected included:

"Tema, Michel Camp, Kpong, Prampram, Tema Industrial Area, Ashaiman, Kpone, Adenta, Madina, La, Teshie, Lashibi, Spintex, Baatsonaa, Cantonements, Labone, Osu, Osu Kuku Hill, Nima, Maamobi, Pig Farm, Achimota and surrounding areas of Kpong itself."

Forget the fact that the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing Bagbin was said to be there exhorting workers to impress upon the workers to expedite the process. 


What I found interesting was the the process.

The week of 11 July, it was announced on the radio, followed by programmes on some radio stations, about the implications of water being shut off near the Kpong Treatment plant. round Wednesday/Thursday sure enough,  the water stopped flowing. Those of us with some "extra" water were able to use water for a day or two, but by Friday, most people were requesting water to be brought to their homes through water tankers.

Those of us with an aversion to such tankers off-late decided to opt for sachet water, which meant a day or two looking for water to BOTH drink and use domestically. By Saturday evening, the water had started flowing in the taps! Though it did take a few days or so for most parts of Accra that get water through taps to get it, my point is:  it was fixed ON TIME, albeit a day later than hoped.

Now two newspaper reports drew my attention to what has informed this post. The first was by Tuesday columnist in the Daily Graphic--Kofi Arkordor--who claimed the Kpong water problem was a reflection of how backwards the country had gone since independence in 1957. The second was a simple news report about how the works were monitored by the Ghana Water Company Limited(GWCL) and the regulator--the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission(PURC). You can read that here: http://news.myjoyonline.com/news/201107/69532.asp.

For me, this was the clincher:

"The director in charge of Water at the PURC, Nii Okae Kotei, said as regulator of the utility institutions, members of the commission decided to visit the treatment plant to have first hand information on the rehabilitation of the transmission line."

This is how it should be done: both the regulator (PURC) and our state provider GWCL working hand-in-hand. Given that the government effectively sacked the private sector management of Aqua Vitens Rand(Dutch/South African company) late June, this has been a vindication of public sector working when people are committed to the goals!

I would like to think that if Ghanaians continue to be as vociferous as they seem to be right now in this democratic dispensation,  we'd definitely have a Ghana that is less inefficient!;-)

What can I say, but "hooray!" to the public sector! Hooray to GWCL/PURC.

Thank you, Public Utilities Regulatory Commission(PURC)!

At a time when consumers are shouting blue murder about tariff increases, it might strike one as odd that I'm advocating a praise!

I certainly have not forgotten the load management programme of 2006 that saw many Ghanaians rationing electricity, because of the over-dependence on Ghana's hydro-power at the Akosombo dam, which was running out. But I do not also forget the very helpful people at the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission(PURC), who have been instrumental in maintaining some level of sanity when the lights went out.

Four years down the line, they continue to be as helpful as they always have been. There is one particular person by the name "Phillip", whose surname I do not know, who always does his very best to address any concerns about electricity.

Two days ago, the lights went off in our area--apparently, Electricity Company of Ghana(ECG)-- was doing unannounced maintenance on a tripped wire. I called PURC, on 0302.240.046 to speak with the same Phillip who said he would investigate for me, even if I had reported it to the ECG hotline on 0302.611.611.

He asked me to remind him of my phone number, which I did.

Within 10 minutes, he had called to let me know he had contacted the district engineer of my area, and that they were aware of a problem. They were not promising anything, but they would restore the lights shortly.

Around two hours later, the lights were back. I know as I got a text message from home.

Interestingly, the following morning, I greeted my desk with a call from PURC, wondering whether my lights came back the evening before!

If that is not efficiency, I don't know what is!

Enjoy your weekend and keep safe.

If you're in Ghana and your lights go off, please don't tell me you don't know what numbers to call on a weekday (from 9am to 16h30), and throughout the week!

It's PURC, then ECG Hotline on 0302.611.611.

Mid-Wk Madness: Am Still Waiting for My Streetlights!

Now, that the Public Utility Regulatory Authority announced 31 May that electricity has gone up by 89%, might we not finally sit up to protest for our streetlights?

A careful scrutiny of our electricity bill reveals that each and every blessed consumer pays an amount towards fire-fighting and street-lighting.

Bottom line: where are our streetlights?

This post is inspired by ACCRADAILYPHOTO.com's one here: http://accradailyphoto.blogspot.com/2010/06/thanks-to-89-electricity-increase-i-can.html

Taxi Tales: "They are Killing Us!"

It has become an article of my quotidian walking diet to stop by the Spintex Road GOIL filling station to either pick a taxi, or walk home. Depending on my mood, I pick a taxi. Last night was no exception.

There was a slight difference in the usual silence that rings through from the filling station to my house some six minutes away from GOIL. Usually, I am so knackered, I allow myself to converse with my thoughts. Yesterday, the difference was in the mini-conversation I had with the taxi-driver after he said that I would be charged GHC1.20--instead of GHC1.00. He told me that yesterday was "the last day" he would be charging me that rate, which I found interesting, considering I have never seen him around that area before.

Oh well.

He went on to say that "they" were "killing us". I knew exactly whom he was talking about. Generally, he was referring to the government; specifically to the National Petroleum Authority that has, yet again, allowed Ghanaians to suffer and experience the vagaries of the fluctuation of oil prices on the market.

Joy Online, in its report put it this way:

This is the second time petroleum products prices have been adjusted in less than a month and the third since October 2007.

The Public Relations Officer of the NPA Steven Larbie tells Joy Business report that the reviews will no more be done monthly but according to price movements of crude oil on the world market.

What it means is that a gallon of petrol now sells at 4 Ghana cedis 68 pesewas or 46,800 cedis; while a gallon of diesel is 4 Ghana cedis 63 pesewas or 46,350 cedis

Putting these prices into context, you can understand why the consumers will have to pay the taxi-drivers. I have had quite a few tales of these over the past few days--and I really cannot blame them.

What I do think is extortionist is when the taxi-drivers decide, consequently, to offer arbitrary prices, knowing fully well that they are providing us with the service, and so without them, we cannot get to our destination!

Whatever the case may be, it's true, this government is killing the average consumer's disposable income.

That, on top of these high prices, one spends around GHC50.00 to buy the equivalent of electricity that would have taken me (before November 1st) almost three weeks for, now, just under two weeks!

Darkness Falls in Accra (3): PURC Talks: How Ghana Govt is Compounding Consumer's Problems; Ghana Chocolate Day!

Earlier this morning, I called home – only to be told that the electricity had gone off around 9am. It was then 11am. I decided to call the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), and spoke to Grace [name changed to protect the innocent] of June 2006 fame, when I first blogged about it here.

I wondered why the electricity was so sporadic, and was informed that they were working on changing the transformers that feed electricity into Spintex road parts and beyond. Puzzled, I quizzed her as to why despite the initial announcement on the radio, ECG could not simply announce on the radio (and elsewhere) that there would be intermittent outages so that citizens could prepare themselves.

She promised to speak with the district engineer of ECG in that area. One thing lead to another and I got to questioning her on why despite the every-five-day-outage of 12 hours, this outage was happening in the first place. She explained that government owes the electricity company some ç300bn!

I have seen news of this in the dailies, but have, regrettably, not been able to get it on-line. Either way, I queried further, and she revealed that the so-called MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies) had run their bills to that tune. Instead of the Ministry of Finance (which receives the bill) issuing the payment, it is stuck there!

In any event, she was displeased with the fact that the tariffs, which had been proposed had been dismissed by the government, ostensibly in order to continue absorbing it. I remember that upon reading this last year ( http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:xSqEw_Lo37YJ:www.ghananewstoday.com/gnt_NewsContribute.cfm%3Findexnumber%3D2437+%22purc%22:ghananewstoday.com&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3, I was a bit mad that the Chairman of the PURC, Pianim, would want to have an adjustment. I would still disagree that an adjustment to attract investors is woefully wrong approach to energy policy. Rather, an adjustment to ensure that those who can afford it pay for electricity is better.

That said, a comprehensive thinking-through is needed, and dare-I-say-it, a referendum on an issue as important as this. A referendum, though, is something that seems anathema, or alien, to government policy, so I don’t foresee any of it happening here soon. However, our journalists could be discussing this in greater depth, and leaving the unnecessary discussion of politics to those who should be politicking—the politicians!

I suspect Grace was telling the truth, if this report on Myzongo.com news is anything to go by:

The Tema Regional Directorate of the Electricity Company of Ghana is replacing its obsolete equipment at the cost of 15 million US dollars to curb the intermittent power outage experienced in the City.

Addressing a Press Conference in Tema, the Regional Director, Dr Nicholas Smart-Yeboah said the amount is generated from the company’s own internally generated funds.

He said it is expected that work on the rehabilitation of the equipment would be completed in August this year to enable customers enjoy uninterrupted power supply.

I finally asked about the so-called Charter whose aim is to protect consumers and compensate them for lost energy (and water). Grace suggested that that would probably be ready by the middle of the year. Fingers crossed!

Oh yeah, as it's Val's day today, let me wish you a happy Chocolate day, too, as it is -- for the first time ever -- Ghana "Chocolate Day". A great article you can read here on fair trade chocolate.

Finally, it just struck my little brain that there are a number of pre-paid electricity meters in estates all over the country. Now, in order to avoid MDAs taking advantage and wasting precious ECG service, might it not be a good idea to remove them from metred electricity onto pre-paid ones, where they would pay upfront?

Darkness Falls in Accra(2), But Regulatory Commission Responds

Ghana's flagship regulatory commission, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) is no stranger to this blog--neither are complaints of darkness falling in the capital contemporraneously associated with what I have described as execrable service delivery by Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

If that all sounds heavy-handed to you, you might like to reflect a bit on the fact that yesterday evening, for no apparent reason--or so it seemed--lights went off around 9.30pm, whilst we were in the middle of watching All that Glitters on TV3. How we were unamused!

When the electricity came back on, it was around 11.50pm, just as Tv3's Gardener's Daughter was at a stage when it was exciting;-)

Seriously speaking, I called that evening to be told that there was -- yet again -- "a fault" and that the ECG people were on their way to the estates. That was around 9.45pm. Must have been a long trip for them to have taken a good two and a half hours to fix the problem, when they have experienced it many a time!

Anger and frustration aside, I contacted PURC this afternoon, on account of the fact that they had switched the lights off at 5.50am this morning. When I called my parents around 3.05pm, it was still off!

Philip, of PURC, contacted me around 3.22pm to tell me that a conductor was broken and that they were on it. This was after having called me at 3.17pm to tell me that he was trying to get in touch with them. He assured me electricity should be back on around 4.30pm. I have yet to call, but I suspect by time I get home around 6.30pm, it should have been restored;-) Fingers crossed!

tags:
accra; ghana purcghana electricity

As the Week Drew to a Close in Accra: Thoughts on Spintex Traffic; Utility Prices; Lessons of Belgian Energy Liberalisation for Ghana

DCFC0646
Originally uploaded by ekbensah.

It was polo immunization week, and as a result, as I heard on Tv3 evening news on 31 October, there was not going to be any load shedding (read: "of the scale there has been").

In any event, I cannot help but wonder whether the load-shedding exercise is not one too many, having outlived its usefulness. First, the holiday of 23rd October was granted a load-management-free day by the government. Now, this: a good four or five days, where electricity won’t go off for 12 hours.

The mind boggles.

Suffice-to-say, uncharacteristically, there have been some positive developments lately than anticipated:

traffic is flowing better on the famed spintex road, where scales of the bottleneneck level of last week is being scuppered by the deployment of more police in “strategic” points that have the tendency to cause traffic, and therefore need regular and consistent monitoring and direction by traffic police.

petrol prices have gone down, albeit marginally

However – and in Ghana, there is always a challenge to grapple with – utility tariffs have gone up.

I cannot for the life of me understand the underpinning logic of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) Chairman, Mr.Pianim, claiming that “tariff adjustments will help ease the intense pressure on the national kitty.”

Check this: Pianim is Chairman of a regulatory utilities commission and he speaks like a free-market man, who believes that competition in the industry is the best way for Ghana’s water and electricity. Just because the government allowed themselves to be hood-winked by the over-balance of perceived "efficiency" of the private sector in water[Rand, water], he believes the same can be applied for electricity?

What type of vision is this by a CHAIRMAN of a utilities regulator?

Besides, the logic is flawed: multinational companies are more interested in the efficiency of service delivery than the raising of tariffs, for the sake of it. You can raise the rates all you want, yet when the capital—not to mention the country—experiences sporadic electricity supply as evidenced by my rant last week, when I opined last week that Accra is "in the dark ages", which company is going to be interested in investing in that sort of shoddy and egregious service?

My sentiments are further buttressed by the case of my surrogate home, Belgium, where the energy sector is about to be liberalized as of 1 January 2007. I sent a note to my colleagues about this development the other day:

Energie

Comparez les prix avant d’agir

Uccle

La ministre bruxelloise de
l’Energie, Evelyne Huytebroeck,
a invité les consommateurs
bruxellois à ne pas se précipiter
dans le choix de leur fournisseur
de gaz et d’électricité,
deux secteurs dont la libéralisation
interviendra, pour l’ensemble
des particuliers, le 1r janvier
prochain.

As liberalisation takes off 1 January 2007, the Minister of Energy has at least set the stage such that Belgians have a fair idea of what they are getting their heads into. Liberalization will enable them to choose a gas or electricity provider, and there is a website (http://www.brugel.be) which enables Belgians to choose provider.

There is even a free brochure being worked on and a free number for those who have queries…

Undoubtedly, not to forget countervailing measures and pressures against liberalization, our Ghanaian counterparts could learn some serious lessons from micromanaging an already-bad situation!

From: http://www.tbx.be/fr/07.02/Archives/app.rvb?date=2006-11-02

A family friend back in Belgium, whom I also copied this, wrote back saying that associated with this liberalization, will be the Suez-owned Electrabel, which is Belgium’s premier electricity provider, no longer providing the meters for the electricity reading, but it being delegated to "an independent meter reading company."

Furthermore, it transpired that one of the companies that are waiting to jump onto the liberalization bandwagon has said this:

“Alexander Dewulf, the CEO of the Belgium branch of Dutch multinational Nuon, says "we will not be present in Brussels because of risks relating to unpaid bills." (from: http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=48&story_id=33819)

All part of the juicy package of privatization.

Don’t you just love it when companies accentuate profit over the people?

I have a sneaky suspicion that what’s happening in Western Europe is bound to happen in even more pernicious ways in countries of Africa if they’re not mindful of the dogmatic and Pavlovian response to the posse that come with deregulation, privatization and liberalization, without adequate and sufficient regulation.

Suffice-to-say, though, that Belgium Energy Minister, Evelyne Huytebroeck (Greens), has mitigated things to the effect that she is emphatic about “not yield[ing] to pressure from the energy supply industry” (from: http://www.vrtnieuws.net/nieuwsnet_master/versie2/english/details/061019_energy/index.shtml
)
Her stance is this:

"We'll go ahead with the liberalisation of the energy market anyway. If the utility companies don't want to supply domestic customers they won't be able to carry on supplying firms. The licence to supply energy applies to both domestic and commercial customers"

tags
accra;ghana news;ghana belgium;
ghana energy;

Darkness Falls in Accra (1)

Accra is in the Dark Ages.

Ever since the load-shedding started, the country’s electricity provider ECG, has decided to ride on the back of the "load management programme" by continuing to deliver increasingly execrable service.

Yesterday, on an evening that was not supposed to experience load-shedding at 6pm, the lights went out, eliciting a collective sigh of resignation and frustration all-rolled-in-one. Calls were made, and it transpired that there was "a fault" in one of the stations near the motorway of Tema. Later, I found out that it wasn’t quite near the motorway, but somewhere around Tema. Not to mention the lack of consistency in the lies (you don’t even know where the genesis of the so-called fault is?) but to buttress all that is the frustration associated with feeling the lights will come on soon when you call, only to find out that the problem has not finished being worked on!


So it was that I would call around 7pm, only to be told that by 9pm, it would return. Dinner came and dinner went among intermittent sounds of generators in the silence, and we still experienced no power. By 10pm, my family and I were too tired to do anything, and so sleep overcame us not too long after that.

Suffice to say, my habitual evening walk with my pet dog, Fenix, revealed an estate engulfed in darkness, with a few generators left and right thundering into the night…and through out it.

Without a doubt, mosquitoes that work in the night had a field day, but I couldn’t help wondering who was truly bleeding us dry: the mosquitoes – or Electricity Company of Ghana?!

tags:
accra; ghana;mosquitoes;darkness ghana;ghana electricity;ghana ECG;