ELECTRICITY Company of Ghana (ECG) has cautioned the general public against corrupting staff of the company by bribing or paying for the renewal of prepaid metre cards in the four districts in the Grater Accra Region which has been hit recently by prepaid system errors.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Today in Accra yesterday, Head of Public Relations at the ECG, Mr William Boateng, urged customers to report any professional misconduct of any ECG staff in prepaid dealings to the company’s office managers.
Mincing no words, he pointed out that any staff caught taking money from affected customers in the period of reviewing the prepaid metre cards would be sanctioned
Mr Boateng was responding to the failure of the ECG’s Build Operate Transfer (BOT) vending prepaid system which made thousands of customers within the Korle Bu, Dansoman, Kaneshie and Achimota areas unable to purchase prepaid credit for power.
He noted that majority of the problems have been resolved in the four districts of the ECG in Accra, expressing that experts have been able to set up a data centre for cards reactivation in all four affected districts free of charge.
The head of public relations at ECG corrected a misconception that the recent prepaid system errors has hit all the twenty (20) districts within the Greater Accra Region where ECG was operating the BOT prepayment system.
He further echoed that the challenge with BOT vending was with the four districts, namely Korle-bu, Dansoman, Kaneshie and Achimota, and assured that his outfit would undertake a comprehensive evaluation to prevent future recurrence.
According to Mr Boateng, the company will also “review processes and systems and come out with measures that will permanently curtail the occurrence of this event that has caused so much inconvenience to our customers.”
He further assured members of the public and various corporate institutions that power supply will not be interrupted before, during and after the yuletide.
Mr Boateng told Today that the ECG has commenced the processes leading to the implementation of the nationwide contingency plan before, during and after the yuletide.
He assured Ghanaians that the country has enough generation to meet customers’ demand, stating that the recent prepaid metre card errors that consumers experienced in the ECD’s four districts of Accra had nothing to do with generation shortfall.
“Going forward, the issue of electricity availability during the Christmas festivities has become a crucial one. Subsequently, the Electricity Company of Ghana wants to assure Ghanaians that we will work extra hard to ensure that electricity is available to all our customers before, during and after the yuletide,” he assured.
Story: Freeman KORYEKPOR AWLESU
Writer’s email: freeman.koryekpor@todaygh.com