The Ketu South Municipality of the Volta region in Ghana is protesting the high electric bills they are being charged by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG). They say the bills are outrageous and do not reflect their actual consumption.
According to the protestors, the bills are so high that they cannot afford to pay them. They are asking the government to intervene and either reduce the bills or provide a subsidy to help them pay them.
The protestors say they are willing to negotiate with ECG, but they want a fair deal.
Those who own stores have much greater expenses to cover, with some estimates ranging from GHC19,000 to GHC40,000.
They claim that these astounding numbers are well in excess of what they consume.
“At home, I use three bulbs, a fan, and a refrigerator. For the entirety of last year, my monthly payments never exceeded GHC100, but suddenly, ECG ceased sending bills for two months at a time, and when they did, the amount had increased to GHC2,151.
“When I followed up with ECG at Denu, all they requested was that I make tiny, tiny payments. Since then, I’ve been paying GHC200 each month, but the sum keeps going up,”
Janet also is one of the many affected customers. Janet runs a small hairdressing shop at Denu.
She told the reporter that the high electricity charges are killing her business since she does not make enough from her business adding that even if she does, she simply cannot understand why she has to pay so much for gadgets that obviously consume less electricity.
“See the things I use here, (pointing her fingers to a hairdryer, a ceiling fan, and a bulb) but my bill is way above GHC2,000. How do I pay for this? I don’t even make that much because I am the only person here, no apprentice,” Janet lamented.
After several complaints and attempts to seek clarification from the company without success, the affected customers took to the streets to protest.
The protest March which began in Aflao was terminated abruptly, several meters away from the premises of ECG in Denu following a decision by the police not to allow the protesters to get closer to the walls of the company.
Edem Mensah Viglo is one of the convenors.
“The reason the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG has fixed energy meters in our premises as a measuring instrument is to measure what we consume.
“It is therefore unreasonable to have these energy meters in our homes to measure our daily consumption but still, we are receiving outrageous bills in the name of Predictive or Estimated Bills. We want to put it on record that we are law-abiding citizens and are ready to pay for what we have consumed as recorded by the meters fixed by the company itself in our homes and shops,” these were the words of Eden to the media.
To address their concerns, the protesters also called for an audit of meters across the operational areas of the company in the Denu District among other demands.
“The problematic billing software should be suspended, replaced, or modified to ensure accurate meter readings and billings, the disconnection of customers with errors in their bills must stop with immediate effect until they are resolved, ECG must make prepaid meters optional (for those who would wish to have prepaid meters), ECG should do audit of meters at the areas under Denu ECG because there are a lot of illegal meters in the system making the government loss a lot of revenue -they know it, we know it, they know we know it, we know they know it (Illegal meters bought from Togo and Nigeria).”
Above all, the protesters asked that “the company must respectful customer service: train staff at the Denu office to treat customers with dignity and professionalism.”
The convenors were however, allowed by the police to meet management of the company to present their petition which was received by the District Manager, Timothy Affrem, who gave assurances that the company would take a look at the matters raised.
The issue of ECG over-billing its customers is a major worry to residents in most parts of Southern Volta who are still on post-paid meters following the introduction of the spot-billing software, an electronic billing system that captures consumption from a customer’s meter.
