Consumers of energy have raised eyebrows at the undue passing of accumulated debt on used and faulty Pre-paid Meters to unsuspecting but new users who have their faulty meters replaced or repaired.
Consumers describe the action as a deliberate attempt by officials of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to ‘extort monies from them.
The incident which is prevalent in Dansoman-Sahara area, left many households without enough credit on their meters because they have refused to pay for fees that was passed onto them by ECG.
Many people who cannot afford to pay between GH¢300.00 and GH¢600.00 have to stay in darkness.
This paper has gathered that ECG technicians who work on faulty pre-paid meters for consumers are charging between GH¢300.00 and GH¢600.00 as accumulated cost over period the meter gets faulty to the time it is repaired or replaced.
This development is causing serious agitations within households which believe faults on pre-paid meters are not their doings, because according to many consumers, they only purchase units, come back, slot the card into the meter and wait for it to load for them to have light.
“We don’t remove the meters, we don’t carry the meters around so how can we be billed for a technical fault on the meter?” they asked.
They explained that when they called the ECG and complain over the inability of their meters to load units bought, and technicians are called to ascertain the situation and offer solutions, they are informed that the ECG system has recorded a debt of GH¢300.00 or GH¢300.00 GH¢600.00 for the consumer to pay but upon negotiations, they cost do come down.
A consumer who narrated his ordeal to this paper said, “I was having a problem with my meter because when I try loading it doesn’t work, so I took it to the Dansoman office. This is a prepaid meter. It was repaired according to the officials there but was told to pay GH¢400.00 as accumulated cost for replacement. I don’t get it because the fault was not from me; this is a technical fault so why must I be made to pay such amount of money?”
He also said, “What we cannot understand is that when you get to the office, you will be told the amount which, according to them was recorded in their system but upon negotiations, they will get the said cost reduced.”
According to them, they smelled something fishy going on at the ECG offices and called on management to rectify the situation since it is becoming unbearable for consumers.
This situation according to investigation is being faced in other areas across the country but consumers are unable to detect these anomalies early and so continue to live with it.
Majority of consumers have fallen victims to this development.
– PROSPER AGBENYEGA