Beginning today, June 14, 2022, a detachment of 50 military troops has been sent to the Krobo region to offer protection to the workers 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 interactions, so at least for now, there's calm," Anokye Abebreseh said. "We're going to start deploying prepayment meters tomorrow, June 14th," he said.
The installation of prepaid meters follows years of conflict between Krobo locals and ECG, which culminated in destructive attacks on the ECG headquarters 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 on Krobo land from 2018 to 2021.
Mr Abebreseh responded to inquiries about the non-payment of energy bills by residents by emphasizing that ECG has ringfenced all arrears. Customers in the Krobo region from 2014 to 2017, but not arrears from 2018 to date, must pay within 5 years, although the debt will not be transferred into the prepaid meters that will be erected.
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