ECG official issues warning against tampering with electricity metres
The Accra West Regional Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Alhaji D. A. Jangu has sent a strong warning to people who tamper with electricity meters without the notice of staff of the company to desist from such habits.
He said the management would deal with people who are bent on ‘feeding’ at the expense of the company, stressing that they have put in place measures to clamp down on such bad people in the society who would face the full rigors of the law.
He contended that in most cases, there are some unscrupulous people who claim that they can adjust the meters in order to reduce consumers’ consumption; a situation which he said has a very serious repercussion for the Company.
Speaking in an interview with this reporter on a range of issues in his office, Alhaji Jangu expressed worry about the rampant illegal transfer of meters within the region and said since the meters are the property of the ECG, customers who are relocating to other places should contact his outfit to help them move the meters accordingly.
The Accra West Regional Director noted that much as the company is poised to ensure that better services are provided to customers, these illegal transfer of meters and tampering with meters invariably affect their operation, saying that when the transfers are done without their consent, the company loses track of the meters and this can have a drain on their revenue generation.
“Our major challenge is that we have people who illegally transfer the meters. If you illegally transfer the meter, then we lose track of it and when you have any problem, we are not in the position to assist you. Even though you go and use it elsewhere, you create a problem for us. We need to track the exact positions of all our meters so that when there is any fault and you need our services, we can easily walk there and solve it for you because you just do not need to direct us since we have the geographical location of it.”
“The meter is the property of ECG and so if you want to do anything on it you need to write to ECG that you want to move to a particular place and based on that we will advise as to what to do. But you just don’t get up and remove it to where you are going to. When we get you we slap a very huge penalty on you,” he maintained.
Alhaji Jangu, therefore, sounded a note of warning to customers that if they allow such miscreants to tamper with the meters, the new prepaid system – the SmartCash, would detect it and hence, such people would be made to pay huge penalties.
The SmartCash prepaid meter is a new system that makes the purchase of electricity units easy through the use of an electronic payment system.
Prepaid electricity changes consumer’s budget constraint, and thereby modifies the amount of electricity he/she is willing to consume. The change from conventional to prepaid electricity implies that the cost of electricity faced by consumers includes not only the price of electricity itself but also the opportunity cost of re-load time and of advanced payment.
The Regional Director, therefore, called on the general public to report people who come to them that they can do something about their consumption to the police since such people are miscreants of society and are not staff of the Company.
According to Alhaji Jangu, the conventional metering system is being phased out gradually and that very soon, the whole of Accra would be replaced with the prepaid system, with Accra West Region using the SmartCash system under a Chinese Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) system.
He said when this is completed, customers would really have value for their money because the Company would be in a better position to provide better services since ECG would have no problem with customers owing the Company.
He also mentioned that measures have been put in place to reduce the hustle customers go through before purchasing units, saying that ECG has contracted the services of 19 private pre-payment vending companies who are currently operating at various locations.
Alhaji Jangu, who said in addition, 29 other companies have signed agreements with ECG and are yet to start operating, said there are fault reporting centres for customers to easily contact when they have problems with their meters.
By Innocent Samuel Appiah
The Accra West Regional Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Alhaji D. A. Jungu has sent a strong warning to people who tamper with electricity meters without the notice of staff of the company to desist from such habits.
He said the management would deal with people who are bent on ‘feeding’ at the expense of the company, stressing that they have put in place measures to clamp down on such bad people in the society who would face the full rigors of the law.
He contended that in most cases, there are some unscrupulous people who claim that they can adjust the meters in order to reduce consumers’ consumption; a situation which he said has a very serious repercussion for the Company.
Speaking in an interview with this reporter on a range of issues in his office, Alhaji Jangu expressed worry about the rampant illegal transfer of meters within the region and said since the meters are the property of the ECG, customers who are relocating to other places should contact his outfit to help them move the meters accordingly.
The Accra West Regional Director noted that much as the company is poised to ensure that better services are provided to customers, these illegal transfer of meters and tampering with meters invariably affect their operation, saying that when the transfers are done without their consent, the company loses track of the meters and this can have a drain on their revenue generation.
“Our major challenge is that we have people who illegally transfer the meters. If you illegally transfer the meter, then we lose track of it and when you have any problem, we are not in the position to assist you. Even though you go and use it elsewhere, you create a problem for us. We need to track the exact positions of all our meters so that when there is any fault and you need our services, we can easily walk there and solve it for you because you just do not need to direct us since we have the geographical location of it.
“The meter is the property of ECG and so if you want to do anything on it you need to write to ECG that you want to move to a particular place and based on that we will advise as to what to do. But you just don’t get up and remove it to where you are going to. When we get you we slap a very huge penalty on you,” he maintained.
Alhaji Jangu, therefore, sounded a note of warning to customers that if they allow such miscreants to tamper with the meters, the new prepaid system – the SmartCash, would detect it and hence, such people would be made to pay huge penalties.
The SmartCash prepaid meter is a new system that makes the purchase of electricity units easy through the use of an electronic payment system.
Prepaid electricity changes consumer’s budget constraint, and thereby modifies the amount of electricity he/she is willing to consume. The change from conventional to prepaid electricity implies that the cost of electricity faced by consumers includes not only the price of electricity itself but also the opportunity cost of re-load time and of advanced payment.
The Regional Director, therefore, called on the general public to report people who come to them that they can do something about their consumption to the police since such people are miscreants of society and are not staff of the Company.
According to Alhaji Jangu, the conventional metering system is being phased out gradually and that very soon, the whole of Accra would be replaced with the prepaid system, with Accra West Region using the SmartCash system under a Chinese Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) system.
He said when this is completed, customers would really have value for their money because the Company would be in a better position to provide better services since ECG would have no problem with customers owing the Company.
He also mentioned that measures have been put in place to reduce the hustle customers go through before purchasing units, saying that ECG has contracted the services of 19 private pre-payment vending companies who are currently operating at various locations.
Alhaji Jangu, who said in addition, 29 other companies have signed agreements with ECG and are yet to start operating, said there are fault reporting centres for customers to easily contact when they have problems with their meters.
By Innocent Samuel Appiah