The Tema Region of the Electricity Company of Ghana has started a mass meter replacement project to provide customers with upgraded prepaid meters that function remotely without an intermediary.
The project will seek to replace all prepaid meters which use cards, for which the credit had to be loaded onto the cards for the cards to be shown to swiped in the meter before the credit will be loaded for use. The new meters, known as smart prepaid meters, work such that once customers buy the credit, it will be loaded directly unto the meter as they do not use any such cards.
Speaking on this on Obonu FM, the Tema Regional PRO for the Power Distributor, Ms. Sakyiwaa Mensah indicated that “the project will cover customers using older versions of prepaid meters within the Tema Metropolis, Prampram, Afienya, Nungua and Ashaiman areas”. She also added that these replacements do not cost the customer, even if it will include possible re-routing.
Mr. Nii Kwei Codjoe, who is the Marketing Officer for ECG Tema Region, speaking on the same program, encouraged customers to be alert and not succumb to any possible fraud issues as “unscrupulous people often call unsuspecting customers whenever such projects are being worked on, in an attempt to cause fraud”. He stated that ECG does not accept payments on the field, adding that the organization has actually gone cashless and that all transactions must be made digitally to the organization and not physically.
It will be recalled that customers of ECG were previously using postpaid meters, which were then changed to prepaid meters. Asked why the need to change from prepaid meters to another type of prepaid meters, the ECG Team indicated that as technology is growing and changing, the company is positioning itself to change with the tines, adding the smart prepaid meters being deployed will also bring more convenience to customers as instances of missing cards and a need to replace these cards will be a thing of the past.
The ECG Team further appealed to the general public to be receptive of their field workers, to question them if in doubt and to demand to see ID cards where necessary.