Endesa has closed down its offices in Baza, which served the whole of the altiplano; i.e. north-east Granada. Now customers up there will have to travel to Guadix to sign electricity contracts etc.

But it started going down hill a couple of years ago when Endesa farmed the office on Calle de Granada out to a private company, whose staff were forced to sell electrical appliances; i.e., they had a quota to fill each month, as well as attend to normal administrative work.

The office only had two members of staff so that in between trying to sell electrical appliances and attending to everybody from the Murcia border to Guadix, people could literally queue for over an hour to be attended to.

Endesa has been busy closing down its offices and reducing staff all over the country in the past months, which is rather ironic, as the price of electricity keeps going up, so that you find yourself paying more and more, but receiving less and less customer service.

To put this into perspective, a villager from La Puebla de Don Fadrique would have to make a round trip of 250 kilometres to sort out his affairs with the company. For those living in Huescar, it’s 200 km and the residents of Baza it’s 100km, as opposed to only having to walk down to Calle de Granada, nº4, where the office was situated.

The Mayor is not happy, the local businesses are not happy and people in general up on the altiplano (plateau) are seriously annoyed.

Endesa says that the closure is only temporary until another private company is found that wants to run it.

(News: Baza, Granada, Andalucia)