BAGUIO CITY – The Benguet Electric Cooperative (BENECO) assured its over 150,000 member-consumers in Baguio and Benguet of its enhanced delivery of services even without hiring additional employees.
Engr. Melchor Licoben, BENECO network services department manager, said the rural electric cooperative will bring its services closer to the consumers in its whole franchise area following the realignment in the deployment of its contractors to the different municipalities of Benguet outside the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) area.
Under the new operational set up, BENECO maintenance personnel will concentrate their efforts in responding to complaints in the BLISTT area while its accredited contractors and their personnel will be responsible in responding to emergency situations in the other municipalities considering that they are already in the said places.
However, Licoben pointed out that there will be a 2-week immersion period wherein BENECO personnel will supervise the activities of their contractors and their personnel to make sure that the standard operating procedures in responding to complaints and maintenance activities will be strictly followed by their contracted personnel.
“We will still be on top of the situation. We just want to make sure that we will have trained people on the ground who will be capable of responding to the emergency requirements of our consumers, especially from the non-viable service areas,” Licoben stressed.
The BENECO official claimed consumers in the different localities within the cooperative’s franchise area should be aware that there will be available maintenance personnel on the ground whom they can get in touch in times of emergency to attend to their needs because they have been trained for such purpose although they are not permanent employees.
According to him, BENECO will not be encountering a serious problem in the out-sourcing of its maintenance personnel outside the BLISTT because those who will be tapped are contractors who are either resigned or separated BENECO employees or those with background of the industry.
BENECO is one of the top performing rural electric cooperatives in the country which has been classified as AAA with a single digit systems loss over the past several years.
Licoben underscored the importance of delivering to the consumers quality power through a reliable system that is being staffed by effective and efficient personnel trained to provide the necessary services to the consumers.
Licoben explained BENECO personnel will focus on responding to calls for emergency response in the BLISTT because majority of the complaints which they had been received come from the heavily populated areas without compromising the delivery of quality services to their valued consumers in the rural areas as their out-sourced maintenance personnel are equally competent to do their assigned duties and responsibilities.
He appealed to consumers to give the new operating system a chance to settle in place so and whatever problems that will arise will be given sufficient attention to be resolved and further enhanced in the future.
By HENT
