A contingent of 50 armed military personnel has been deployed to the Krobo area to protect the staff of the Electricity Company of Ghana, ECG, as it commences the installation of prepaid meters to replace postpaid meters in the enclave.
The exercise begins today Tuesday, June 14, 2022.
The Municipal Chief Executive for Yilo Krobo, Eric Tetteh is urging all residents to cooperate with the ECG staff.
“A contingent of 50 military personnel will be deployed in the Krobo area to assist the ECG to install prepaid meters from Kpong. The instruction is simple, when they enter your house and you say you don’t want a prepaid meter, they will disconnect you and move on.
This painful decision is the last resort due to the activities of some people in inciting people to resist the installation of prepaid meters whilst ECG continues to pile debt as a result of failure by people to pay their bills. The alternative was scary as we risked losing power in the Krobo area. Please, let’s avoid any confrontation and cooperate” MCE for Yilo Krobo, Eric Tetteh announced.
Meanwhile, the new Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Mr. Samuel Dubik Masubir Mahama paid a courtesy call on the Eastern regional Minister Seth Kwame Acheampong on Monday, June 13, 2022, as part of his familiarization tour with Staff across all regions in the country.
In his company were Ing. Michael Baah – General Manager (Eastern Region), Ing. George Hommey-Director of Operations, Ms. Cynthia Amartey – Director of Human Resources, Mr. Samuel Tagoe – Director of Premises and Estates, Mr. Abraham A. Abebreseh- Director of Customer Services, Mr. Francis Dzata- National Task Force, Mr. Dan Adjei- Larbi- GM/PMO, Mr. Willam Boateng- Director of Communication
Speaking to the media in Koforidua at the sidelines of the meeting, the Director of Customer Service, Abraham Anokye Abebreseh said, intensive engagements have been done with all stakeholders in the Krobo area hence expecting maximum cooperation.
“Just last week we met, a tripartite kind of a committee comprising of Electricity Company, National Security and United Krobo Foundation. We met and the agreement is that ECG going to install prepaid meters starting from tomorrow for which all of us have agreed .so come tomorrow (Tuesday) we are going to deploy our men to the field to start the installation of prepayment meters. We have done a lot of stakeholder’s engagements so at least for now calm is prevailing so come tomorrow 14th of June we are going to start deployment of prepayment meters” said Anokye Abebreseh.
The installation of prepaid meters comes after years of the impasse between Krobo residents and ECG which escalated into devasting attacks on the ECG office in Somanya and led to a deadly clash with police. The ECG office has since been shut down.
Residents vowed to resist the installation of prepaid meters while calling on ECG to write off debts owned by customers in Krobo land from 2018 to 2021.
Answering questions on the controversy of none payment of electricity bills by residents, Mr. Anokye Abebreseh stated that ECG has ring-fence all arrears of customers in the Krobo area from the period between 2014 and 2017 but arrears between 2018 to date must be paid by customers within 5 years however, the debt will not be transferred into the prepaid meters to be installed.
“We made it clear that the period between 2014 and 2017 has been ring-fence so that the customers, for now, will not border themselves about their amount but then the period between 2018 to date the customers are supposed to pay but for goodwill purposes, we’ve asked that we are not going to put the debt on the new prepayment meters. Normally the practice is that when you out prepayment meter there you put the debt on the post-paid meter on the prepaid meter so that we will recover whatever debt but in this case, we said from 2018 to date we are not going to put it there, and that we will meet customers individually and determine how they should pay the debt”
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
