Prepaid meters cost Ghana government $99.2m in 2015

Government has from 2012 to 2015 imported a total of 999,135 prepaid electricity metres for the operations of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Northern Electricity Development Company (NEDCo).

The total cost of the metres stood at $99.2 million as at December 2015.

Out of the number, NEDCo received 235,000 pieces of the metres at a cost of $14.5 million, while the ECG received 764,135 pieces at the cost of $84.7 million.

Deputy Power Minister Abu Jinapor told Parliament that the import followed Government’s approval for larger projects to replace all credit metres with prepaid metres for all Ministries, Municipal and District Assemblies in the operational areas of the electricity companies.

The Deputy Minister was in the House, responding to question posed by Mr Justice Joe Appiah, Member of Parliament (MP) for Ablekuma North, requesting the number of prepaid metres that had been imported in to the country by the Government and the total cost of the imports.

The Deputy Minister said the introduction of the prepaid metres was a means of enabling the ECG and NEDCo “collect revenue upfront in order to finance their operation and improve on the efforts to provide quality services to customers.”
“This was also intended to empower customers to manage the use of electricity by avoiding waste and also prevent the accumulation of unpaid bills.”

Other question asked on the power sector were by Edward Kaale -Ewola Dery, MP for Lambussie;   and Hajia Alijata Sulemana, MP for Sissala East both seeking to know the progress of work on  electrification projects in some communities in their constituencies.

For Mr Dery, the communities are Kokorligu, Chetu, Boguno, Gyirigan, Nyubule, Nichili, Bu, Dandapurigu, Tampuri, Hamile West and Konsi.

For Hajia Sulemana, the communities are Bichemboi, Du, Bawisibile and Komo.

Mr Jinapaor said approval has been given for the projects, which would commence soon.

Source: GNA