Consumers of electricity in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta region have staged a protest against the Electricity Company of Ghana over what they describe as outrageous monthly tariffs.
Several affected customers who joined in the demonstration on Wednesday say the Denu District of ECG is billing them beyond their consumption and urged the company to review its billing mechanisms.
The affected customers, most of whom are non-commercial consumer households have outstanding bills ranging between GHC2000 to GHC10,000.
Others who run shops have even more to pay with some estimated bills as high as GHC19,000 and GHC40,000.
These staggering amounts according to them, are way above their consumption.
“I use a fridge, fan, and three bulbs at home. My monthly bills for the whole of last year were not above GHC100 but recently, ECG stopped bringing bills for two months and the next time they came, the figure rose to GHC2,151.”
“When I followed up to ECG at Denu, they only asked me to be paying small, small. Ever since, I have been paying GHC200 every month yet the amount keeps increasing,” an aggrieved customer told Starrfm.com.gh.
Janet also is one of the many affected customers. Janet runs a small hairdressing shop at Denu.
She told the reporter that the high electricity charges are killing her business since she does not make enough from her business adding that even if she does, she simply cannot understand why she has to pay so much for gadgets that obviously consume less electricity.
“See the things I use here, (pointing her fingers to a hairdryer, a ceiling fan, and a bulb) but my bill is way above GHC2,000. How do I pay for this? I don’t even make that much because I am the only person here, no apprentice,” Janet lamented.
After several complaints and attempts to seek clarification from the company without success, the affected customers took to the streets to protest.
The protest March which began in Aflao was terminated abruptly, several meters away from the premises of ECG in Denu following a decision by the police not to allow the protesters to get closer to the walls of the company.
Edem Mensah Viglo is one of the convenors.
“The reason the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG has fixed energy meters in our premises as a measuring instrument is to measure what we consume.
“It is therefore unreasonable to have these energy meters in our homes to measure our daily consumption but still, we are receiving outrageous bills in the name of Predictive or Estimated Bills. We want to put it on record that we are law-abiding citizens and are ready to pay for what we have consumed as recorded by the meters fixed by the company itself in our homes and shops,” these were the words of Eden to the media.
To address their concerns, the protesters also called for an audit of meters across the operational areas of the company in the Denu District among other demands.
“The problematic billing software should be suspended, replaced, or modified to ensure accurate meter readings and billings, the disconnection of customers with errors in their bills must stop with immediate effect until they are resolved, ECG must make prepaid meters optional (for those who would wish to have prepaid meters), ECG should do audit of meters at the areas under Denu ECG because there are a lot of illegal meters in the system making the government loss a lot of revenue -they know it, we know it, they know we know it, we know they know it (Illegal meters bought from Togo and Nigeria).”
Above all, the protesters asked that “the company must respectful customer service: train staff at the Denu office to treat customers with dignity and professionalism.”
The convenors were however, allowed by the police to meet management of the company to present their petition which was received by the District Manager, Timothy Affrem, who gave assurances that the company would take a look at the matters raised.
The issue of ECG over-billing its customers is a major worry to residents in most parts of Southern Volta who are still on post-paid meters following the introduction of the spot-billing software, an electronic billing system that captures consumption from a customer’s meter.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh/103.5fm/Faisel Abdul-Iddrisu
