Metre Shortage Hits Accra West ECG
At the Ablekuma District Office, Soireenews learned that customers who had successfully applied for meters and paid all the necessary charges were being told almost on a daily basis that there were no meters in the system.
Alex Donkor 
Reports reaching soireenews indicate that the Accra West Region of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is seriously plagued by a shortage of prepaid meters.
The paper understands that the situation is a result of a growing demand for meters, especially by meter applicants in developing and emerging communities within Accra.
Some of these communities include Manhean, Joma, and Oduman in the Ga West Municipality, and Avornyor Danchira and Obama Domeabra all in the Ga South Municipality.
According to scores of meter applicants in Manhean in the Ga West Municipality in the Greater Accra Region, their meters have been delayed for several months even though they have paid all charges at Ablekuma District Office of ECG at Fan Milk.
A frustrated and livid Bernard Adjei, an applicant, vented his spleen on ECG staff members at the company’s Ablekuma office.
“Anytime I go to the office to enquire about when they will be coming to fix my meter, they have a different story to tell me. It was until this week after pressing them that they told me about the shortage of meters!” Mr. Adjei lamented.
Another applicant at Joma, Edward Mensah, who has applied for a three-phase meter at the Ablekuma District Office, lashed out at ECG staff members.
He described them as “a bunch of liars,” who were always telling him different narratives.
At the Ablekuma District Office, soireenews learned that customers who had successfully applied for meters and paid all the necessary changes were being told almost daily that there were no meters in the system.
Soireenews gathered that the development has left many prospective consumers frustrated with some resorting to panic-buying.
Further compounding matters are so-called middlemen who are taking advantage of the situation to exploit unsuspecting meter applicants in dire need of meters.
Investigations by Soireenews revealed that these middlemen were selling a single-phase meter for GHC800, twice the price sold by the ECG which is GHC400.
For a three-phase meter, applicants were buying it from the middlemen at GHC2000, although ECG was selling it at GHC800.
Another issue that came up in our investigations was the high issue of illegal connections.
Soireenews.
Com discovered because of the delays in fixing new meters of successful applicants, the illegal connection has become a norm and high in many of these developing communities in Accra.
