Africa-Press – Lesotho. As part of its initiative to promote participatory regulation, the Lesotho Electricity and Water Authority (LEWA) has solicited wisdom from the stakeholders on service delivery in Maseru yesterday.
The event was attended by among others, Chiefs, Representatives from various government ministries, Community Councilors, members of the community, the youth and Media Practitioners.
While officially opening the event, Maseru District Administrator (DA) Mpane Nthunya expressed delight over the good working relations between the offices of LEWA and his office.
He indicated that nowadays, electricity is a necessity as it makes life easier. Nthunya said Lesotho takes pride in being the water tower of Africa though some villages still have no water supply.
He urged LEWA to work on this issue and revealed that the meeting would shed more light on how LEWA resolves customer complaints. LEWA Public Relations Officer (PRO) Sebusi
Khanyela highlighted that the aim of the meeting was to establish the Maseru-LEWA committee from the stakeholder representative groups. He said the mission of LEWA is to regulate the electricity, urban water and sewage services in the interests of all stakeholders and support their growing and ever-changing needs. Khanyela also made note that LEWA embraces the following values: customer focus, operational excellence, effective
communication, integrity, professionalism and teamwork. While presenting the conditions of supply and complaints handling, LEWA Consumer Affairs Officer (CAO) ‘Machabalala Koatsa said prior to lodging complaints to LEWA, a customer has to ensure that the subject matter of the complaint is on at least one of the regulated activities,
these may include customer service, billing, new service connection, disconnections, reconnections, metering, water or electricity quality and service disruptions.
Koatsa further pointed out that such complaint should have been lodged previously in writing with any of the regulated entities, Water and Sewage Company (WASCO) and Lesotho Electricity Company
(LEC) and the complaint must have been addressed by either LEC or WASCO, but not to the satisfaction of the complainant or it must have been unattended in a period of two weeks. Amongst the issues brought up by stakeholders are: bad customer service from WASCO and LEC, high electricity charges, water supply that is halted by WASCO officials without a stipulated warning or timeframe, prepaid electricity at government offices. They suggested that independent electricity supply should be allowed and that LEWA should not only regulate services for urban communities only but towards rural communities.
It is in this meeting that the Maseru-LEWA committee was elected. Meanwhile, the Annual LEWA Report 2020-2021 states that the authority among other things, produced publications to raise stakeholders’ awareness on the LEWA mandate and customer issues, LEWA donated
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to Government Covid-19 referral hospitals to contribute in the fight against Covid-19. LEWA issued a License Exemption to One Power
(Pty) Ltd for the operation of Ha Makebe mini-grid. LEC’s application for tariffs increase was considered and it was decided that there should be no tariff increase on the Energy and Maximum Demand (MD) charges for all customer categories. WASCO’s application for tariffs adjustment of 3% that was deferred as due process could not be undertaken because the country was still under restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total budget of M24 million for the Universal Access Fund (UAF) was approved and ‘Mahuu in Rothe constituency benefitted from the Fund.
The Chief Executive’s Report concludes with the challenges and the way forward: During the year under review, the regulated entities submitted incomplete and inaccurate data during tariffs applications,
non-compliance was observed in areas such as connections and disconnections, safety of electricity infrastructure, effluent quality and complaints handling and resolution and failure to submit the Leakage Reduction Program by WASCO. To mitigate the above, LEWA issued compliance letters and organized virtual inter management meetings between itself and the Licensees.
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