PURC launches 2nd phase DBMS to improve data collection, analysis

The Public Utilities Regula­tory Commission (PURC) Wednesday launched the second phase of its Database Management System (DBMS).

The project, on the theme “Ef­fective Utility Sector Regulation through improved technology in Ghana” is being funded by the Af­rican Development Bank (AfDB) through the Korea-African Coop­eration Trust Fund (KOAFEC).

It is aimed at providing a secure, multi-tier management system for all regulatory data with “role-based access and front-end capability” for processing, reporting and managing the Commission and the regulated utilities.

Speaking at the event held in Accra, Executive Director of the PURC, Dr Ishmael Ackah, said this phase of the project would make it easier for the PURC to link its system to that of the utility providers.

Explaining, he mentioned that the first phase of the project en­abled the Commission to perform most of its regulatory functions, such as complaint management effectively.

However, he stated that the PURC intended to further improve data collection and analysis with the second phase of the DBMS project.

This when done, he said would provide details of customer com­plaints made to utilities and give information of when the customer got response for the complaint lodged.

“With this system when a customer goes to a utility to make a complain, we get the alert with details of the customer. It will also give us messages about how swift the Utility provider responded. This way we will get live and cred­ible data not data based on what the utility will send us,” he added.

He explained that this would help the PURC take regulatory decisions easily “and also show us that we have credible sources of data.”

Mr Ackah also reiterated his outfit’s commitment to promoting energy conservation in the country.

The Ghana Country Manager of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), Ms Fasika Eyerusalem, in her remarks commended the PURC for pioneering the regula­tory digitisation initiative that has become a blueprint for replication across many African countries.

She stated the AfDB had over the years been at the forefront of mainstreaming electricity regulato­ry issues within the broader power discourse in Africa, adding that PURC’s digitisation initiative was born out of the bank’s flagship Electricity Regulatory Index for Africa (ERI) report, which empirically assesses regulatory frameworks for African countries, identify regulatory gaps and bottlenecks, and make recom­mendations to address them.

The initiative she said under­scored the bank’s efforts to sup­port regional member countries to improve the quality and effective­ness of energy regulation using customised solutions to address identified regulatory bottlenecks and create an enabling environ­ment to attract private investment into the energy sector.

She revealed that the deploy­ment of the DBMS for the PURC under phase one was a major contributory factor to the improved regula­tory performance observed for Ghana on the Electricity Reg­ulatory Index, moving from seventh ranked country in 2021 to fourth in 2022.

Ms Eyerusalem assured of AfDB’s continued support for soft infrastructure initiatives similar to the DBMS, to comple­ment the hard infrastructure in the energy sector such as power plants and transmission lines towards the attainment of the universal access to electricity in Africa

 BY RAISSA SAMBOU

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