The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has advised its customers in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis and Tarkwa who are currently on the prepaid metering system not to wait till the units on their prepaid cards run out before going to reload them.
The Regional Manager, Mr Ben Nyatepe, said sometimes queues formed at the regional and district offices as well as other designated vending stations in the metropolis was due to the fact that customers waited till their lights went off before rushing to the vendor stations to reload their cards.
Explaining to the Daily Graphic why some points of sales experienced long queues, Mr Nyatepe said when the ECG changed from the post billing regime to the prepaid system, it educated the customers on how the system worked.
He expressed regret that some customers disregarded the education and waited until their units had ran out before rushing to the vending stations to reload them, thereby creating a problem at the point of sale.
“Some of the things we told the customers were that before coming to our premises to reload their cards, they must first insert the prepaid card into the metre for the card to pick some informations required by the vending machine and to also reload their units early but some customers would simply not comply with this directive,” he said.
Mr Nyatepe said when the customer refused to insert the card into the metre before going to the sales points, officials might ask such a customer to return home and do the right thing and wait for a response before coming back to reload.
He expressed regret that public response to invitations to attend public fora to enlighten them on what to do was always low.
He said in all, the ECG would change about 82,000 post-paid meters to the prepaid regime in the twin-city of Sekondi/Takoradi and Tarkwa.
A total of 45,000 old meters would be changed in Takoradi, 22,000 in Sekondi and 15,000 in Tarkwa.
Mr Nyatepe stressed the need to increase the points of sale to ensure that at every point in time the customer had easy access to units.
He said the company had vetted and awarded contracts to private companies and financial institutions to vend power in and outside the metropolis.
The contracted companies, he said, would provide the structures while the ECG provide them with the vending machines to vend power for a commission.
The ECG is currently training employees of the contracted companies for the programme which will soon commence.
Asked how the bills in arrears would be retrieved and illegal connections by some customers, checked, the regional manager said the new metre was uniquely to perform such tasks.
“With the old bills, the machine will block access to a customer’s card unless the old debts were cleared, and where necessary, we will then sit down with the customer and negotiate the mode of payment convenient for both the customer and ECG,” he said.
The regional manager said every card had unique features and one could not engage in any illegal connections. In the event of a customer attempting to engage in illegal connection, the metre will go off by itself and prevent people from cheating the system.
He also said the ECG made sure that the contracted companies had an insurance policy and were in good standing financially to ensure that when the unexpected happened, ECG would be cushioned.
In addition, Mr Nyatepe said the ECG would be able to prevent the contracted vendors from embezzling the revenue that would accrue from the sales.
Mr Nyatepe said switching to the new metering system had been to the advantage of both the customers and the ECG.
He explained that there was no difference between the credit on mobile phones and ECG prepaid power to the premises of the customer, saying, “when we buy units on credit, we control how we spend them and how long we can talk.
He said similarly, when the customer loads units on his prepaid meter, the customer became energy efficient by managing the consumption.
The ECG and customers, he said, would benefit from the new billing regime since the company would not do any monthly reading and billing of the meters at the customer’s premises, and the manpower and other resources would be channelled into other areas for efficient and effective service delivery.
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