The federal ombudsman has received a record number of complaints regarding the payment and processing of applications for the federal government’s energy grant. Thousands of people have been waiting over six months for the payment or even for the approval of their application. The grant was introduced to cushion the blow of spiralling energy costs at the height of the energy crisis.
Complaints involve the basic energy package for household gas and electricity but also the grant for people heating using wood pellets and heating fuel.
The federal ombudsman says his service received 1,200 complaints about the energy grant over 9 months. It’s the highest number of complaints about one single issue over such a short period of time ever.
Most complaints centre on the grant for pellets and heating fuel and in particular about the length of time it takes to get approval of individual dossiers and the lack of communication from the economy ministry in response to queries.
If emails are answered, the answer is often unintelligible or vague. The economy ministry recognises there are problems with the processing of applications, but requests patience. Efforts are being made to reduce the length of time callers are having to wait before receiving a response too.
The ministry still needs to process over 96,000 applications