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Officials from the Ashanti Strategic Business Unit (SBU) from Electricity Company of Ghana last week visited Eskom in order to study international best practices in the electricity distribution and customer service businesses in Eskom.

The visit was on the back of Inter-Governmental Memorandum of Understanding (IGMOU) on co-operation in the field of electricity that the two Governments of the Republics of South Africa and Ghana entered into on the 26th of November 2013.

“This IGMOU provides for collaboration between the state electricity companies, as well as approval and support for the creation of partnerships in the various areas of the electricity industry between electricity companies from both countries,” Group Executive for Transmission Thava Govender.

Subsequent to the signing of the IGMOU, Eskom and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) entered into an Inter-Utility Memorandum of Understanding in order to facilitate and promote co-operation in the field of electricity distribution and all related businesses.

Last week’s study tour was aimed at improving the performance of the Ashanti SBU of the ECG.

“The study tour aimed to learn, benchmark and understand the importance of Eskom’s organisational strategy, business planning and sustainable systems and further to understand how the Performance Management System is implemented in Eskom. The delegation was also excited to learn more about Eskom’s Employee Engagement Programme as an enabler of organisational culture. The study tour also focused on Eskom’s process management and quality assurance system, shared services concept and the customer network centre business model,” Govender said.

Mr Theophilus Asante-Darko, General Manager for Business Development at ECG and Co-ordinator of the Study Tour, said the utility has identified Eskom as their training hub.

“We created the SBU in order to improve the performance of our company. The study tour also focused on Eskom’s process management and quality assurance system as the creation of the SBU led to redefining most of the operational and business processes, which need to be documented, managed, reviewed and audited periodically. We also studied Eskom’s shared services concept and the customer network centre business model. Much value was found in engaging with Eskom and we continue to learn from each other,” he said.

In an effort to learn more about how Eskom’s customer network centres (CNC) are managed, the delegation did a site visit of the Soweto CNC. The delegation also visited Eskom’s Shared Services HUB at Lobedu House in Sunninghill, Johannesburg and the Eskom Academy of Learning in Midrand.

Issued by Eskom