By Kwabia Owusu-Mensah
Kumasi, March 26, GNA – The Ashanti West region of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has embarked on an exercise to clamp down on illegal connections and retrieve bill arrears from its customers.
The exercise forms part of efforts by the company to ensure that all those using electricity illegally were brought to book, while customers who are indebted to the company pay their bills to support the revenue mobilization agenda.
The exercise is taking place in all the eight operational areas of the region, namely; Abuakwa, Adum, Ahinsan, Bibiani, Danyame, Kokoben, Offinso and Suame.
Mr Maxwell Dapaah, Ashanti West General Manager, told the Ghana News Agency, that the exercise would see ECG revenue mobilization teams visit companies, factories, households, hostels, hotels, cold stores, pubs, restaurants and government institutions that owe the company to ensure that they settle their debts.
The team would also check the integrity of all postpaid and prepaid meters, illegal connections and surcharge customers caught using power illegally to deprive the company the needed revenue.
He said the special exercise would help the company to retrieve money owed by some customers and curb the menace of illegal connections in the region.
He said the exercise was backed by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission’s (PURC) Regulation L.I 2413 (30) which allowed the company to disconnect customers who refused to pay their bills within two weeks (14 days) after receiving the bill.
Mr Dapaah, however, pointed out that, the company did not take delight in disconnecting its customers.
“We buy and sell power, hence the more a customer consumes power, the more the company makes money, so we don’t take delight in disconnecting customers since we don’t get revenue from unserved power.
However, disconnections are mostly the last resort and carried out to prevent the customer from accruing more debt and to enable the company to gather more revenue to keep the electricity supply chain running, he explained.
He said the company was reaching out to its debtors through various communication channels as part of efforts to engage them before any disconnections were carried out.
Mr Dapaah called on customers who do not receive their bills or dispute their bills to continue to pay on account based on the last bill they received or pay portion of the bill they do not dispute and visit the ECG offices for redress.
He further appealed to customers to desist from illegal connections and make the payment of their electricity bills one of their topmost priorities to enable the company to keep electricity supply chain operational.
GNA