State Govt defends decision to keep Synergy bungle quiet as two thirds of customers still out-of-pocket

The State Government has defended the decision not to publicly reveal a Synergy bungle that saw 2800 vulnerable customers overcharged. It was revealed by the Economic Regulation Authority on Monday that it has issued an enforcement notice, after Synergy continued to collect from Centrepay accounts for Centrelink customers even after the accounts were closed. The problem was detected in December. Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson blamed the delay in notifying the public on the March 8 State election, but said the utility was working to resolve it. “(Synergy) were notified late last year and they spent that time identifying those customers,” she told reporters on Wednesday. “I suspect there was a reluctance, necessarily, to move forward publicly until we had a minister in place, the government in place. However, since April, they’ve worked diligently to identify those customers. “They’ve actually been very public about this since April. It’s the ERA decision that has brought attention to it, if you like. But we’ve been working with them.” The ERA believed $2.3 million remains owed to customers, with just 30 per cent of the money repaid so far. “Some of those customers are very difficult to track down,” Ms Sanderson said. “It is concerning and we want to make sure that that money goes back to those people.. She urged affected customers to contact the utility and has announced an independent review to get to the bottom of what went wrong, and whether any other payment methods have also been overcharged. “That’s what we’re investigating . . . to assure that this hasn’t happened, but to investigate any possibility of that,” she said. “This is going to be quite a significant and wide ranging review that will look very carefully at all of their systems and processes to ensure that they are rigorous going forward. “I’ve also requested that they put a manual stop on every account that is closed . . . and that they check and double check that that account is closed and that they can no longer be paid into.”