|
TANESCO: Improve bill payment system
2005-09-19 07:10:53
By Editor
In its bid to recover staggering 100bn/- debts from its customers, the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) last Friday said it would disconnect power to all bill defaulters.
This action follows a one-week ultimatum given to power consumers to settle their bills or face disconnection.
TANESCO did not start by issuing a warning.
It started off by conducting a widespread campaign to sensitise customers on the need to settle their bills.
Last week, we reported that long queues were imminent as customers rushed to settle their bills.
It takes courage for one to admit that one’s premises were in darkness because the proprietor had not settled the monthly power bills.
When this happens in areas like Dar es Salaam where most activities require power, one can count losses in terms of thousands.
For domestic users, one has to forget the comfort of using a fan, drinking a glass of cold water or storing perishable food in the fridge.
Having to stay in total darkness at night is the last thing a city resident would wish for.
What with burglars, robbers and thugs stalking residential areas lately?
We also don’t think that those seriously engaged in businesses would want to lose a single cent at any one time.
They too, will clear their bills to allow smooth operations of their activities.
After all, if they wait for power to be disconnected, they will have to pay a fine before it is restored.
As for the government and its departments, we can only hope that they are not bad debtors and will be exemplary to other consumers.
In the past, the government appeared on the list of bad debtors and this triggered complaints on the part of domestic users.
Some even went to the extent of suggesting that power tariffs had shot up because small scale users had to help government settle its huge bills.
At this juncture, however, we would like to urge TANESCO to think of easing the cumbersome procedures of settling power bills.
Many service providers like banks and telephone companies used the manual system in the past.
Long queues stalled and delayed operations as staff struggled to serve customers.
Many hours were wasted in just a small thing like withdrawing some 20,000/- from a bank account.
Today, however, it takes hardly a minute to access the same service after the introduction of automated teller machines (ATMs) and prepaid phone services. It pays to move with time, doesn’t it?
We think TANESCO would serve us a great deal if it makes it’s prepaid card metres popularly known as LUKU, compulsory to all its customers.
In some cases, customers have claimed that power metres are not read, instead, some estimation is entered, to complement the reading.
How can this be a perfect estimation? LUKU is the perfect solution to such complaints.
There are many advantages with LUKU but first and foremost, the customer will only use the amount of power that his/her pocket allows.
Of course this might mean laying off some of the staff attached to the billing section but this will be in the interest of the customer and will make the system more efficient and easy to run.
We hope TANESCO will take measures to improve its payment system with the view to avoid the inconveniences caused to both its customers and the company itself.
|
