General News of Tuesday, 10 March 2015
Source: Abdul Karim Naatogmah | citifmonline.com
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (Ghana) has engaged a cross-section of Journalists from the three regions of the north on the ongoing nationwide load shedding exercise.
The day’s orientation workshop held in Tamale sought to provide the participants with adequate information to best inform and educate their targeted audience on the situation.
Resource persons from VRA/NEDco and GRIDco as well as the PURC’s Executive Secretary Engineer, Samuel K. Sarpong educated the participants on the load shedding exercise, its impact on the national economy and recommendations on how to mitigate the problem.
In a Citi News interview on the sidelines, the PURC’s Director of public and external affairs, Nana Yaa Jentuah decried the power crisis and added her voice to calls on the government to fix the problem.
She described the ongoing load shedding exercise as a managerial problem.
She therefore pleaded with the media to stop misconstruing the situation to be a shortfall of quality services by the energy service providers.
She also debunked the public assertion that the PURC always fell short of its intermediary role anytime utility service providers announced upward adjustment in tariff charges.
She reaffirmed the PURC’s willpower to independently negotiate with utility service providers to provide quality services alongside reasonable tariff charges.
She however admonished consumers to conserve energy as best means of mitigating the impact of the energy crisis on their socio-economic development.
The participants applauded the PURC for the workshop and described it as a timely intervention.
Some of them exposed VRA/NEDco for failing to publish the load shedding exercise for the Northern Region.