The African Development Bank (AfDB), through Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation Trust Fund has provided funding of US$590,000 to Ghana’s Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to undertake the second phase of the Database Management System after the successful implementation of the first phase in 2021.
To this end, officials of PURC, Africa Development Bank and stakeholders in the energy sector convered in Accra, the capital of Ghana, to launch the second phase of the Database Management System project which is expected to be completed in eighteen months.
Speaking to the gathering of energy industry players at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel, the Executive Secretary of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), Dr Ishmael Ackah, explained that the first phase of the Database Management System project had enhanced the regulatory functions of the Commission.
He said as of December 4, 2023, eight thousand, nine hundred and fifty (8,950) consumers of electricity and water had been served since the DBMS help-desk became operational, adding that 34,913 text messages from the DBMS had also interacted with customers.
He further said there were 1000 downloads of the PURC Customer App with 526 customers signing up.
According to him, the Commission was able to resolve 18,026 out of the 20,810 complaints received since the inception of the DBMS.
Touching on the focus of the second phase of the DBMS, Dr Ackah noted that the Commission, currently, relied solely on data churned out and submitted by the utility providers without any system of independently verifying and validating it.
“The current system of manual data gathering and verification raises issues of data consistencies, misinformation and transparency, affecting the PURC’s ability to make regulatory decisions,” Dr Ackah noted.
He said with the implementation of the second phase of the DBMS, the Commission would be able to defeat the current challenges via the automated and consistent gathering of data through the integration of the DBMS with the digital systems and platforms of utility service providers across the electricity value chain.
Dr Ackah was optimistic that the Commission’s ability to integrate the DBMS with the platforms of the utility providers would improve the Commission’s regulatory objectives while protecting the interests of consumers and utility providers.
The Board Chairman of the PURC, Mr Ebo B. Quagrainie, noted that the second phase of the DBMS would enhance open access to regulatory information, transparency of regulatory processes, stakeholder engagement and participation in the regulatory process, as well as institute a mechanism for tracking and monitoring utility performance and consumer complaints for quality of service regulation.
“The deployment of this centralised DBMS in Ghana will be a trail-blazing regulatory initiative that will generate great interest from the regulatory community across Africa,” he said.
The Country Manager for the African Development Bank Group, Ms Fasika Eyerusalem, said the project is coming at a better time as the world moves into smart technologies and systems across the electricity value chain for efficiency and integrity of processes.
She said due to the success of the PURC’s Database Management System under phase I, the Bank has received several requests from other countries and currently implementing similar digitalization initiatives in Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Liberia and Guinea.
According to her, the Bank is deploying similar digital platforms for regional regulatory utilities in COMESA, ECOWAS, SADC and EECAS.
Ms. Eyerusalem reiterated the Bank’s commitment to continue supporting soft infrastructure initiatives to complement the hard infrastructure in the energy sector such as power plants and transmission lines towards the attainment of universal access to electricity in Africa.
She encouraged all sector stakeholders in Ghana to support the Database Management System project for speedy and effective implementation to achieve its intended objectives.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com/