Residents of Kroboland in the Eastern Region of Ghana, whose electricity bills have accumulated for over four years, will be given two years to settle their indebtedness.
The Director for Customer Services at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Mr Anokye Abrebrese gave the hint at a stakeholders’ engagement in Somanya on Wednesday, February 10, 2022.
Although residents of Kroboland owe ECG as far back as 2012, Mr Abrebrese said the power distribution company has decided to ring-fence the debts from 2012 to 2017.
He, however, said residents who are on both prepaid and postpaid meters will be made to pay for all the accumulated bills from January 2018 to date.
Mr Abrebrese explained that management decided to make it flexible for the residents to settle their indebtedness.
“We are giving our customers two years to pay their debts,” he said.
According to Mr Abrebrese, residents who can settle their debts at a go will be allowed to do so.
Touching on how residents can identify how much they owe over the past four years, Mr Abrebrese said ECG would issue them with statements of the amount of money they have ring-fenced from 2014 to 2017 and their electricity bills from 2018 to date.
He assured the residents that the billing would be done transparently.
Touching on the roadmap for the installation of prepaid meters in the area, Mr Abrebrese explained that per the ECG’s policy, all customers under Category ‘A’ districts of EC, which includes the Somanya District, in the country must have prepaid meters installed.
On his part, the Tema Regional General Manager for ECG, Ing Emmaneul Akinie noted that 3,007 postpaid meters in the Somanya district would be replaced with prepaid meters.
He said a survey conducted in the area revealed that some 414 meters have been installed but are yet to be captured in the system of ECG.
In addition to that, he said some 421 faulty meters have been detected in the Lower Manya District but were quick to say that 418 of them have been replaced with three yet to be replaced.
He assured the residents that all ECG offices in the area would soon begin full operation with plans far advanced to add another at Kpong.
Before the installation of the prepaid meters, Mrs Theresa Osabutey, who is a member of the ECG Communication Unit at the head office, said customers in the area would be sensitised on the use of the prepaid meters.
According to her, education would be carried out separately for traditional authorities, religious bodies and traders before the community as a whole.
She said the community members would also be educated through the mass media besides the aforementioned planned sensitisation programmes to re-echo issues.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
