Samuel Mahama, the managing director of Electricity Company Ghana (ECG), has defended the decision to cut off power to the municipalities of Yilo and Manya Krobo.
Mr Mahama said the disconnect was in place during an interview on Nana Akosua Konadu’s Hard Truth program on Tuesday.
“The funny thing is we walk around thinking that it is our right to electricity; it is not a right, it is a privilege,” he said.
Mr Mahama explained that “if I can chase people in Fadama to pay their bill by giving them prepaid, I should be able to do the same thing in Manya Krobo. If I can ask the people in Dansoman to pay bills through prepaid, I should be able to do that in Yilo Krobo.”
From Somanya to Kpong, communities in the towns of Yilo Krobo and Manya Krobo are not connected to the national grid.
Since Wednesday, July 27, the areas have been complete without power as a result of ECG turning off the feeders that provided power to the two municipalities’ neighbourhoods due to unauthorized connections.
ECG claims that certain obstinate residents who were disconnected for refusing to adopt prepaid meters had tampered with their transformers and reconnected power to their homes.
Families in the communities of Yilo and Manya Krobo claim that as a result of the power outage, mortuary operators are requesting them to come to pick up their loved ones’ remains.
The bodies are thought to be rotting because of the widespread power outage in the neighbourhood.
One of the local youth activists, Edmund Aboagye, stated in an interview with JoyNews on Monday that five families have been called repeatedly by mortuary staff members to come to pick up their loved ones’ bodies since they are decaying there.
He claims that the workers at the morgue claim they are unable to pay for the fuel needed to keep the facility running.
“I have had about four or five persons who have their family relations of dead bodies at the mortuary call to inform me that the hospitals have called them to come and pick up their dead bodies because they have started going bad at the mortuary,” he said.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Jospeh Asare