By Maxwell Awumah
Ho, Nov 14, GNA – The Volta/Oti segment of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is up-stream with its nationwide exercise to capture the consumption of customers and ensure the adequate payment of bills.
The exercise, which commenced on November 6, is expected to end on December 11, 2023.
Ms Christina Jatoe-Kaleo, the General Manager of ECG Volta Region, addressing the media, said the exercise has begun in all eleven districts of the Volta and Oti regions.
These are Denu, Keta, Akatsi, Sogakope, Ho, Kpeve, Kpando, Hohoe, Jasikan, Nkwanta and Dambai.
She said the Company had transformed into a digitized era moving away from manually capturing meter readings to conform to international standards.
The digitised system forms part of the transformational projects to enhance operational efficiency, provide customer convenience and reduce system losses, drastically.
ECG officials would visit the premises of customers to capture their consumption levels, check integrity and verify meter readings, as well as engage customers in arrears on need to pay their bills, Mrs Jatoe-Kaleo said.
“In previous revenue mobilisation exercises, we went out in our numbers to ensure customers in arrears paid their debt and that was successful because we were able to visit a lot of customers since we had enough staff on the field,” she said.
“In view of this, we want to replicate the same exercise but this time around we are going out in our numbers to visit all our meters to capture the consumption of customers in addition to the revenue mobilisation.”
Ms Jatoe-Kaleo said ECG Officials would go to the premises of customers carrying point of sale (POS) device, which would enable them to capture and verify meter readings and take pictures of the readings and the meter.
“Once they capture this information, our back office receives the information instantly for billing process to commence.”
She said with the POS device, customers who demanded instant bills could be printed out from the device immediately.
Ms Jatoe-Kaleo indicated that ECG staff had been well-positioned to carry customers along and appealed to them to avail themselves for the education.
She said the digitised system had an end-to-end feature that allowed customers to be abreast of current trends to engender confidence building and transparency.
“Once customers can see what is happening, we will all be on the same page,” she added.
“The idea is that moving forward, customers can even submit their readings at the end of every month and their bill will be generated for them, hence this education.”
“The ECG PowerApp has a feature that enables customers to submit their meter readings and receive bills to make it easy for them to pay on time.”
The ECG officials could be identified by their ID Cards, reflector vests or by clicking the Verify Staff option on the ECG PowerApp or shortcode *226#.
Ms Jatoe-Kaleo urged customers to desist from illegal connection and take advantage of the ongoing revenue mobilisation exercise, dubbed: “Operation Fix The Bill and Pay The Bill” to correct all anomalies.
GNA