The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) says it has so far installed 9,000 electric prepaid meters in the Manya and Yilo Krobo Municipalities of the Eastern Region albeit strong resistance and opposition from a section of the community on the prepaid meter installation exercise.
The figure falls below half of its estimated 27,000 prepaid meters the power distribution company intended to install in the areas in the midst of a series of protests.
The ECG commenced a prepayment meter replacement exercise in the Krobo enclave in May 2022 as part of measures to curtail the continuous accumulation of over five years of unpaid electricity bills by the residents.
The exercise was, however, met with serious protest, compelling ECG to seek for the assistance of engineers from the security agencies.
Managing Director of ECG, Samuel Dubik Masubir Mahama speaking with the media as part of his tour of the Tema Region, especially the Krobo enclave, expressed optimism that his outfit will achieve it target.
According to him, albeit the challenges that confronted the exercise, a good number of residents have welcomed the prepaid meters.
“We can say that quite a good number have welcomed our efforts and we are well within the 9000 mark of pre-payment meters installation.
“ECG staff are going back to work and more towns are joining the bandwagon. We see us completing this exercise in a very good time and it will help us increase our revenue,” Samuel Mahama said.
The ECG boss attributed the gains to the traditional leaders, opinion leaders in the area, the Municipal Chief Executives and the National Security for their efforts that have contributed to restoring calm in the area.
Mr. Mahama called for calm following reports of brutality at Nuaso during metre installation
According to him, ECG is waiting for a formal report on the accusations of military brutality during the installation of prepaid metres at Nuaso in the Lower Manya Krobo municipality, saying that it was too early to assign blame following the incident on August 23.
“ECG is not happy about what happened. I can’t also say the ECG will take the blame now because we don’t have a report. We would like to wait and have a full and proper appraisal of what took place,” Mr. Mahama said.
Going forward, he stated the punitive power cuts would be more targetted, if dialogue fails.
“It is not going to be like first, where the whole enclave was in darkness. It is going to be treated on a town-by-town basis.”
Some residents in the area, especially Nuaso accused soldiers from the 49 Engineers Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), accompanying ECG workers of beating them as others also alleged that they were wounded by gunfire from the soldiers.
Nuaso was subsequently cut off from the power grid after the tensions between some residents and the ECG personnel where a resident threatened to pour hot oil on the ECG team.
By Vincent Kubi