By Maxwell Awumah
Ho, April 27, GNA – The Electricity Company of Ghana, Volta Region, has appealed to customers to always take advantage of the 14 days moratorium after bills are dispatched to pay current bills to avoid disconnection.
Mr Michael Buabin, the Acting Volta Regional General Manager disclosed this at a media briefing after the Company’s one-month national revenue mobilisation exercise, which saw ECG recoup more than GH¢40 million in Volta and parts of the Oti Regions.
He urged customers to pay up within 14 days, and failure to do so would lead to disconnection as stated in Public Utility and Regulatory Commission (PURC) Regulation, LI 2413.
“If you receive your March bill between 1st and 10th April 2023 and you have not paid, know that you are due for disconnection so, please go and pay,” he said.
The Acting General Manager reiterated that ECG as a Company does not take delight in disconnecting customers.
“We are not at war with our customers. As a company we understand their plight, hence, the 14 days grace period before any disconnection. However, there are instances where customers have been disconnected the same day they received a bill, but the disconnection was due to previous arrears and not the current bill.
“When you receive a bill from ECG, at the bottom right are three columns indicating; CURRENT BILL which is your consumption for that month alone, PREVIOUS BALANCE which is what you owe ECG before your current bill was generated and AMOUNT PAYABLE, which is the total amount of CURRENT BILL and PREVIOUS BALANCE. So, if we bring your current bill and you had a previous balance, which shows you owe ECG, we can disconnect you from the previous balance.
“As a company, we have also noticed that some customers pay only the Current Bill and leave the previous balance which contributes to their indebtedness, so we urge our customers to pay the figure stated at the AMOUNT PAYABLE column of their bill,” he clarified.
According to Mr Buabin, the Regional Management team was poised to ensure customers pay their bills regularly.
“Though we have stated that we intend to sustain our revenue mobilization efforts by doing this exercise the last week of every month, for the March bills, our revenue officers will be going out immediately to visit our customers because the 14 days have expired for most customers and we will follow up with phone calls to high debtors to enable them settle their indebtedness before our teams get to their premises.”
He added that customers whose bill had delayed should keep paying on account based on the last bill because the PURC Regulation LI 2413 enjoins customers to pay on account of failure to receive their bills.
Mr Ruforson Ernest Ativui, the Volta Regional Revenue Protection Manager cautioned the public, especially persons and organizations who obstructed staff of ECG from carrying out legitimate duty, part of which is disconnection or access to meters should desist from such acts, since such constitute a criminal offence.
He appealed to all customers to desist from illegal connections and make the payment of electricity bills one of their topmost priorities to enable the company to keep the electricity supply chain operational since the revenue ECG gathers from customers keeps our lights on.
Mr Abrefah Besea, Volta Regional Commercial Manager announced that “customers can pay their bills by downloading the ECG PowerApp on google play store or AppStore or through the USSD shortcode *226# or at any Bank.
GNA