INSENSITIVE ELECTRICITY PROVIDER (ECG, ARE YOU THE ENEMY AMONG US?)
Albeit with reservations, some citizens largely agree with the concept of prepaid meters.
Utility companies need new strategies for recovering revenue from customers, reducing electricity wastage, and theft. In a gradual attempt to gravitate towards prepaid meters because a substantial amount of the bill in the postpaid system go unpaid. Let’s not be in a haste to run a system that technically we lack the knowhow or is fraught with challenges.
I don’t know if the meaning of prepaid has changed suddenly. I took pains to ferret about the internet, and know exactly what producers of prepaid meters in Denmark sought to do when it was produced. This is what they had to say about their meters on their website.
“It keeps track of the consumers’ credit balance and ensures that no power consumption can occur without having been paid for in advance.”
My understanding of prepaid from the Telcos, and any other line of service is no different from what the company had to say. This definitely has to be their manual.
My question then to ECG is, why do users of such utility in Ghana suffer so much? We’ve countless archetype of people in my community and many other places having paid 300 cedis, and ended up owing 50 cedis or more after usage. Monetary values differ from many places. What users find incredulous is that the system overruns your credit balance, and sends you into negative figures.
How is a prepaid meter that is supposed to work on credit balance, and cut users off the grid when our credit is up leave us with a debit balance of more than 10% of what users paid for. Even the age-old credit phone cards had some credibility.
The system that is so intelligent, and well calibrated that it’s supposed to put us in darkness as soon as our credit is out loses its mind in Ghana but functions so well in Europe. Perhaps it’s because they’re in the manufacturer’s country or the meters know the climate, and people so well.
The six weeks uninterrupted light that left some users in la-la land, and electrocuted residents of Kpone with high-voltage live wire bills was one of many reasons.
Let’s ask this company what prepaid means to them in their daily lives.
ECG, are you operating an industrial secret in your company? There was no communication to the residents of such affected locations, and no plausible explanation to users. It got a little nauseating, and the absurdity profound when an unknown dimwit in the wee hours of 13th March deliberately or not set an electrical pole on fire, and we in the community were asked to pay for it. Again, we contributed and complied.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back is this disco light phenomenon of Dumsor flying high like a hoisted flag over the country currently. I remember the age-old ” Light Aba ooo, Light Aba ooo” which echoed among children in the early 80s and 90s. What a zeitgeist and hark back from an era by one company? You’ve grown with the young and still living with the old .
Surprisingly, in this advanced technological age, this inveterate tradition still lives on, and looks inexorable of being imbued or passed on like a baton to our progeny. For how long, ECG?
There’s no schedule for planning for your grave incompetence, and inefficiencies. You’ve damaged many fridges in this community, and I’ve suffered twice in the process in weeks. I don’t know if the process it takes to get a medal as a verified user of your light is what we’re going through now. Not a wisecrack, indeed!
The slather of sweat that clothed me before my fridge was repaired, and my scurrying about for help to salvage my grocery was lost on you. Why put humans into such quandary?
Our hard-earned monies invested into cooking sumptuous, mouth drooling Light Soup, Kontomire, Banku & Okro Stew, Jollof Rice, Waakye, and other foods went rotten just like your rotten service whiles we threw our food away into smithereens.
Citizens see collapsing electrical poles in obtuse or acute angles all over, bushfires nearing electrical poles, faulty meters and send complaints through email, in person and phone calls yet nothing gets done or sometimes it takes forever for you to act.
Is it not about time you changed your wooden electrical poles seeking safety in thickets, use modern smart prepaid meters that excel with their smartness, disengage from bagatelles, and improve other teething problems that may arise with your work daily?
ECG, convince us if you’re not the enemy among us.
Written by
Francis Abotar Sey.
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