Samuel Mahama
FOLLOWING THE replacement of the post-paid, non-smart prepaid, and faulty meters in residences and industrial facilities in the Accra West Region, power consumers have lodged multiple complaints to the company about the outrageous readings the meter records.
Many have stated that the new meters seem to run faster and consume more power than the old ones attributing it to the poor calibration of the new meter which does not match the charges per usage.
They thereby accused the ECG management of shortchanging them under the guise of raising revenue.
Addressing this concern in a press engagement, Managing Director, ECG, Samuel Dubik Masubir Mahama, stated that the replacement of the smart meters which forms part of the company’s Loss Reduction Programme (LRP), an initiative to improve energy accounting, was not built to ‘rob’ consumers as speculated in the media.
According to him, the reasons why customers are complaining about the meter running faster is as a result of meters being old and others also being mechanical thereby potentially reducing the accuracy of decimal recordings as compared to the new smart prepaid meters.
“The new meters that we have are off by 0.05 which is very accurate. Maybe you can get away with charging your phones but every single thing you do consume will be read” he said.
Mr. Masubir Mahama added, “We should start talking about energy conservation rather than ever because that is the only way that you can pay less.”
By Prince Fiifi Yorke