A one-week revenue mobilisation campaign by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has started. It is primarily aimed at residential and non-residential customers in its service regions.
The operation, which closes on Friday, June 2, 2023, aims to recover more than GhC2 billion from consumers who are in debt.
In order to recover money owed to it, the ECG is sending almost 4,000 employees to the locations of its clients.
William Boateng, the ECG's Director of Communications, revealed this to the Daily Graphic yesterday and said that the exercise will also be used to test a new software programme the firm plans to deploy to identify anyone who has unlawfully used electricity on its database.
Month-long
This year, the ECG began a revenue mobilisation effort between March 20 and April 20. Out of the GH5.7 billion sought at the end of the operation, the corporation recovered GH3.1 billion.
Mr. Boateng pointed out that the board had given management approval to launch the one-week programme starting on May 29, 2023, to Friday, June 2, 2022, in order to recover money owed to it by residents and non-residents after the successful one-month revenue mobilisation that saw the mobilisation of GH3.1 billion.
"The special load (SLT) tariff consumers would not be the focus of this specific one-week operation.
It implies that we are excluding SLT businesses and sectors.
This is due to the fact that we already have a taskforce in place that is focusing on the SLTs.
Therefore, it is already looking after the SLTs for us, he stated.
He added that "these are small businesses that fall under its commercial operations even though they are not SLTFs, which are much bigger and consume a huge amount of power," adding that "these are businesses that fall under its commercial operations even though they are not SLTFs, which are much bigger and consume a huge amount of power."
The revenue mobilisation exercise was also being used to test-run a corporate application to collect more people who weren't already included in the ECG's data, according to the ECG Director of Communications.
"Since you don't have a metre and are consuming power, you have made an unlawful connection, which we would immediately rectify before enrolling you in the system and charging you a fixed fee to begin with.
As opposed to before, when we would have to disconnect you and you would then need to visit our office, we charged you, and after that, it won't happen again if the consumer pays, resolves not to use the electricity again, but still goes and steals.
He reiterated, "So long as you are utilising the electricity, we will regularise you.
When asked if this meant there wouldn't be any sanctions for engaging in such criminal activities, he responded that the corporation would decide how it would proceed.
He explained that the purpose of the new initiative was to ensure that no one in the company's service region used energy without paying for it.
Fixed price
Mr. Boateng reiterated that the firm will implement the flat rate scheme the next week, in which consumers who do not have metres but have made payments will be given flat rates to pay.
"We're aiming to introduce a flat pricing structure by the end of next week.
There are clients who have paid but have been waiting without metres.
What we want to do is offer you a fixed fee based on the size of your building and all of your electrical equipment if you ask for electricity and we don't have metres and the client wants it.
We would wait for the metre if you wanted to, he added.
He said it would take the place of the earlier scenario, in which customers paid and were forced to wait for months while "goro" lads also profited from the circumstance.
Customers
He stated that employees who will be handling the revenue mobilisation will have their identity cards available for client verification.
Additionally, he mentioned that there was an application with a staff portal that could be checked out.
"In fact, staff has been instructed to provide their information if the customer requests it so that they can receive all the support and unrestricted access in terms of working at their place," he added.
He informed clients that there would be disconnections throughout the exercise and asked them to pay their debt to the corporation so that it would have the money to, among other things, compensate the independent electricity producers.
blogpay
Total Comments: 0