Reporting electricity, urban water and sewerage service faults is a step towards improving quality of service provision and an opportunity for regulated utilities to respond to faults promptly. It thus, amongst other things, improves safety outcomes through early detection and resolution of issues before they become crisis, saving a regulated entity costly downtime.
Reporting service faults benefits not only service providers but also customers. Fault reporting enables the service provider to track recurring problems, analyse accrued faults to identify patterns, take corrective actions and prepare preventative measures to curb future faults from occurring. Analysing fault trends can ultimately assist the service
provider in identifying service improvement needs, thus enhancing process optimisation.
Utilities frequently experience planned and unplanned outages, which are attributed to faults. The 2008 and 2013 Quality of Service and Supply Standards (QoSSS) for electricity and urban water and sewerage services guide
situations and duration on attending to service faults. As a good practice, regulated entities are obliged to inform customers of planned outages beforehand so that customers may arrange alternative means. When regulated entities experience unplanned outages, the minimum service restoration time indicated in the QoSSS must be adhered to.
QoSSS, developed by the Lesotho Electricity and Water Authority (LEWA) for the regulated entities, stipulates set requirements to adhere to the fault reporting process for network disruptions. Fault reporting on network disruptions necessitates, amongst other things, provision of a customer tracking number and operating hours of a call centre. The customer tracking number is a reference for the reported fault for follow-up enquiries. If a reported fault takes over two weeks unattended, a customer should escalate such a complaint to LEWA for intervention. On the receiving end, the Authority monitors compliance with the fault reporting process through monthly utility reports.
Customers may report service faults through regulated entities’ communication channels. Lesotho Electricity Company (LEC) administers faults through calls to (+266) 800 22 000 and a WhatsApp text to (+266) 6227 4000. For Water and Sewerage Company (WASCO) faults can be reported through calls to (+266) 22 262 120, (+266) 800 22 011 and WhatsApp text to (+266) 5700 0365.
