Residents of Kpongunor in the Odumase Krobo in Eastern Region on Thursday hit the streets to demonstrate against the installation of prepaid meters and deployment of armed military personnel to the area as part of the exercise.
The demonstrators clad in red armband and in traditional war apparels chanted war songs to express their displeasure.
A contingent of 50 military personnel have been deployed to the area to provide security to staff of the Electricity company of Ghana as it replaces all postpaid meters with prepaid meters since June 14,2022 .
The military are being assisted by National Security and the Police.
However, according to Sakyiwaa Mensah, Public Relations Officer for, ECG, Tema Region the military are providing technical support since they are undergoing refresher training course at ECG training school.
Customers who still insist on rejecting prepaid meters are taken off the national grid.
Residents in the Krobo area are unhappy with the development hence the demonstration.
Meanwhile, speaking to the media in Koforidua on Monday June 13,2022 at the sidelines of a familiarization visit by management of ECG led by the new Managing Director (ECG), Mr. Samuel Dubik Masubir Mahama, the Director of Customer Service, Anokye Abebreseh said, intensive engagements have been done with all stakeholders in the Krobo area hence expecting maximum cooperation.
“Just last week we met ,a tripartite kind of a committee comprising of Electricity company , National Security and United Krobo Foundation .We met and the agreement is that ECG going to install prepaid meter starting from tomorrow for which all of us have agreed .so come tomorrow (Tuesday) we are going to deploy our men to the field to start the installation of prepayment meters .We have done a lot of stakeholders engagements so at least for now calm is prevailing so come tomorrow 14th of June we are going to start deployment of prepayment meters ” said Anokye Abebreseh
The installation of prepaid meters comes after years of impasse between Krobo residents and ECG which escalated into attacks on the ECG office in Somanya and led to deadly clash with the police. The ECG office has since been shut down.
Residents vowed to resist installation of prepaid meters while calling on ECG to write off debts owned by customers in Krobo land from 2018 to 2021.
Answering questions on the controversy of none payment of electricity bills by residents, Mr.Anokye Abebreseh stressed that ECG has ring-fenced all arrears of customers in the Krobo area from the period between 2014 and 2017 but arrears between 2018 to date must be paid by customers within 5 years however ,the debt will not be transferred into the prepaid meters to be installed .
“We made it clear that the period between 2014 and 2017 has been ring-fenced so that the customers for now will not border themselves about their amount but then the period between 2018 to date the customers are supposed to pay but for goodwill purposes we’ve asked that we are not going to put the debt on the new prepayment meters. Normally the practice is that when you out prepayment meter there you put the debt on the postpaid meter on the prepaid meter so that we will recover whatever debt but in this case we said from 2018 to date we are not going to put it there, and that we will meet customers individually and determine how they should pay the debt”
The Minister of Energy Matthew Opoku Prempeh revealed a month ago during the ministry’s ‘meet the press’ briefing in Accra that, Technical and commercial losses of about GH¢3.2billion are threatening the future of state-owned power distributor -the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
The company’s losses in then exchange terms amounts was US$400million accumulated from power theft, malfunctioning metres, obsolete infrastructure, ineffective revenue collection, among others.
The minister lamented: “Which company can be viable if it loses that amount of money? Power theft – those who are stealing power, those whose metres are not working and those who don’t have metres but have electricity – is costing ECG nearly GH¢3.2billion,”
Losses from the technical and commercial factors stood at GH¢1.8billion, and GH¢1.5billion respectively in 2021, from GH¢1.4billion, and GH¢1.5billion respectively in 2020.
Technical and commercial losses in the last five years (2017 to 2021) reached GH¢8.9billion)
ECG is therefore on a serious drive to reduce commercial loses in the system.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Kojo Ansah
