Soldiers have been sent to Krobo as ECG begins the installation of prepaid meters

Beginning today, June 14, 2022, a contingent of 50 military personnel has been deployed to the Krobo area to offer protection to the staff of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) while it replaces all postpaid meters with prepaid meters.

National Security and the Police will help the military.

Customers who continue to refuse prepayment meters will be disconnected from the national grid.

Eric Tetteh, the Municipal Chief Executive for Yilo Krobo, has urged all citizens to work with the ECG workers.

The Director of Customer Service, Anokye Abebreseh, told the media in Koforidua on the sidelines of a familiarisation visit by ECG management led by the new Managing Director, Samuel Dubik Masubir Mahama, that intensive engagements have been done with all stakeholders in the Krobo area, and that maximum cooperation is expected.

"We just met last week, a tripartite group made up of the Electricity Company, National Security, and the United Krobo Foundation." We convened, and we came to an arrangement that ECG will begin installing prepaid meters tomorrow, which we have all agreed to. So, starting tomorrow (Tuesday), we'll send our employees out into the field to begin installing prepayment meters.

"We've had a lot of stakeholder engagements, so at least for now, there's calm," Anokye Abebreseh said. "We're going to start deploying prepayment meters tomorrow, June 14th," he added.

The installation of prepaid meters follows years of conflict between Krobo locals and ECG, which culminated in destructive attacks on the ECG office in Somanya and a tragic police confrontation.

Since then, the ECG office has been closed.

Residents have pledged to oppose the installation of Prepaid meters and have asked ECG to forgive customer bills in Krobo land from 2018 to 2021.

Customers must pay arrears between 2014 and 2017 in the Krobo area, but arrears from 2018 to date must be paid within 5 years. 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 ringfenced so that customers will not be concerned about their amount for the time being; however, the period from 2018 to date is when customers are expected to pay, but we've requested that we not put the debt on the new prepayment meters as a gesture of goodwill."

"Normally, when you put a prepayment meter there, you put the debt on the post-paid meter on the prepaid meter so that we can recover whatever debt," says the company. "But in this case, we said we are not going to put it there from 2018 to date, and that we will meet with customers individually to determine how they should pay the debt."

Technical and commercial losses of roughly GH3.2 billion are endangering the viability of state-owned electricity distributor, ECG, according to Minister of Energy Matthew Opoku Prempeh during the ministry's'meet the press conference in Accra a month ago.

The corporation lost US$400 million in exchange terms due to power theft, defective meters, aging infrastructure, and poor tax collection, among other things.

"Which company can be viable if it loses that much money?" the minister lamented. ECG is losing about GH3.2 billion due to power theft — those who steal power, those whose meters aren't working, and those who don't have meters but have electricity."

In 2021, losses due to technical and commercial issues totaled GH1.8 billion and GH1.5 billion, respectively, up from GH1.4 billion and GH1.5 billion in 2020.

In the recent five years (2017-2021), technical and commercial losses were GH8.9 billion.

As a result, ECG is working hard to eliminate commercial losses in the system.