Trials and Tribulations

Monday morning should have been straight forward. Charge up my electricity smart card and spend an hour or so on the internet. It started by a visit to my landlord’s brother’s house across the compound to insert the smart card in my meter before charging. This done, I walked the mile to the main electricity office. There was a short queue to pay. The lady at the window took the card and money but told me the card had not been inserted in the meter so it could not be charged. I walked home. The landlord’s brother confirmed that the card had been inserted and that it sounded like it had developed a fault, as his had. I took the card back to the office. Fortunately I was dealt with promptly and was soon in the back of a 4WD heading back to the house with an engineer. We made a couple of stops on the way and, fortunately (again) we passed the landlord’s brother on the way. He gave me the key to his house so we could get at the meter. At the house, the engineer confirmed the faulty card. Unfortunately the car was not returning to the office so I made my third trip to the office. When I arrived the power was off and the computer was unable to validate a replacement card for me. By the time I had bought a newspaper and a huge bo froot (doughnut equivalent) the power had returned. One of the clerks tried to charge me 2 cedis for a replacement card. I objected and he capitulated. I left with my new card and headed for the internet cafe. The new card had to be inserted into my meter before it could be charged up. It was now three hours after I had begun the process, I must have walked five miles and I was no nearer charging my card than I had been when I started.

This was of course all hugely frustrating, but could have been a lot worse, particularly if I had not been able to get the key to my landlord’s brother’s house so easily. Daily life in Ghana, particularly involving customer service, presents many such annoyances but I have to be careful that I remain objective about them. Are they caused by Ghanaians or is something else responsible? In this case it was a faulty (probably very cheap) card. The service I received from the Electricity Company of Ghana was actually very prompt and efficient. The only negative aspect was the cheeky attempt to charge me for the new card. I accept that I might have been getting the VIP white man service but it doesn’t happen very often and it makes a change from being overcharged. Customer service generally is poor, even by comparison with other African countries but there are signs of improvement. For every bartender whose attention you can never attract, even though she has nothing else to do, there is a DVD seller who will go through his entire stock looking for the disc you want.