He said the high metre cost and connection charges as well as other bills were a disincentive to many customers.

Dr Ishmael Acqah was speaking when he paid a working visit to the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCO) and the Ghana Water Company in Wa.

He interacted with the management of these companies to learn at first hand their challenges, plans and measures instituted to improve their services.

The visit was also to enable the PURC to look at the development plans of the utility companies and to support them to deliver quality services to customers.

The PURC Executive Secretary underlined the unswerving commitment towards making sure that there was customer satisfaction with the services of the utility providers.

The Commission was also eager to ensure that the companies were also financially viable to enable them to deliver.

“The PURC is working assiduously to ensure that the utilities are financially viable to provide quality services to the clients.”

He announced that the PURC had developed a WhatsApp platform where it had been interacting with management of the utility companies to promptly resolve challenges.

Madam Serena Kwakye-Mintah, the Upper West Regional Chief Manager of the Ghana Water Company, said the Wa Water Treatment Plant at Jambusso, with a production capacity of 15,000 cubic litres, was doing just about 4,000 cubic litres due to limited pipeline network.

She spoke of plans to carry out extension works and said this would allow pipe-borne to be more communities in the Wa municipality.

She complained about the non-payment of bills by water consumers, vandalising of pipelines by some people and the burning of pipelines by bushfires during the dry season and said these were their major challenges.

At the NEDCO, the high cost of metres was identified as a challenge for many property owners and Dr. Acqah urged the company to adopt flexible payment methods to make things easier for consumers.

The issue of lack of communication between the company and consumers was also recognised as a challenge.

Dr. Acqah appealed to consumers to always have patience with the company whenever there was an interruption of power supply.

He explained that many of the power outages were unplanned and there was little or nothing the company could do when they happened.