Fonte: ANEEL

Last Tuesday (12/13), the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency board approved the resolution that obliges all 63 electricity concessionaires in the country to install an ombudsman within 180 days after publication of the norm.

The resolution also brings determinations, such as, the obligation of a structure to handle all consumers in the concession area regarding their requests for information, explanations of doubts, forwarding of suggestions, compliments, complaints and denunciations.It was also determined that the distributors shall train all Ombudsman staff to correctly respond to the consumer.Thus, training shall be held in Ombudsman practices, ethics, mediation and conflict solution, consumer rights and defense within the public and private ambit, communication and general conditions for supplying electricity.

The issue was debated during a public hearing heal between September 1 and October 14, 2011. A total of 118 contributions were received from interested parties.The agency decided to discuss the matter in face of the importance of ombudsmen as a communication channel between the consumer and public authorities.

From 2000 to December 2011, the ANEEL ombudsman and the ombudsmen from the 11 state member agencies recorded more than 10.5 million calls handled.That is an average of six thousand calls per day to the Call Center (CTA), as well as requests by letter, fax, in person, e-mail and chat.Nearly 90% of the electricity distribution concessionaires have an ombudsman, and of that total, 65% were created more than five years ago.(PG/DB).