From: CustomerDiscuss.Com | Visit Now
A ruinous hallmark of a monopolistic market is the floodgate of abuse—while the inherent lack of alternative always breeds customer suffocation, exploitation and extortion.
Interestingly, this is the sort of market the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has long been proudly operating in–serving as the only supplier of consumable electricity in Ghana, unprovoked and unchallenged by any real competitor.
Monopoly and exploitation are inseparable. And these two create a Byzantine bureaucracy which adds to the price woes of the ordinary consumer.
I am not an Energy expert but it doesn’t take much to deduce from the hovering power crisis and unending complaints that Ghanaians are deeply and hopelessly frustrated under the monopoly of ECG, a remnant of the once thriving conception that the provision of electricity must come from the state.
It’s insane that ECG remains the sole provider of electricity to the entire domestic Ghana and either you like it or not, you have to deal with them and gulp down their every-minute increasing tariffs on the back of their below abysmal customer service.
Irrefutably, ECG is at liberty to do whatever—the company inflates its charges faster than Donald Trump churns out his always trending political hogwash and jingoism. ECG is not under any sort of competitive pressure to even explain to customers why their meters run faster than Usain Bolt.
Ghana is not a socialist state or its extreme form, communist state; so why can’t the market be opened for competition such that ECG would be compelled to wake up from that deep slumber of incompetence and customer exploitation that it has long been freely enjoying?
My sister who moved from London to Ghana says she spends over 80 Ghs each 5 days on electricity when she doesn’t really run any heavy appliances. From our recent conversation, I figured out her anger was not solely as a result of the obvious unregulated charges of ECG but the fact that, there’s no alternative to run to—even if it wouldn’t make that much of a difference to her cost.
Several social media friends unremittingly complain about the astronomical electricity bills they are being slapped with—many are always in shock as to how quick their purchased pre-paid credits run out, especially when they only use ordinary everyday home appliances.