PDS to introduce prepaid meters at Lower Manya Krobo

The Management of Power Distribution Service (PDS) is to introduce smart prepayment metering system to replace the existing postpaid metering system in communities within the Lower Manya Krobo municipality. 

A meeting between the assembly members, PDS and the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) agreed on a roadmap to address the recurring clashes between community members and staff of PDS over non-payment of bills.

In an interview with Citi News, the Head of Public Relations for PDS, William Boateng said installing prepaid meters will be the best solution moving forward.

“Going forward, we think that the best solution is to get them prepaid meters. We will consider it. But we are talking also about money. The prepaid metering is not free… We will have to access some money before we can go into that particular project.” he said.

Background

Angry youth of Kpongunor organized a spontaneous protest to petition the Municipal Chief Executive for the Area, Kwaku Simon Tetteh, on their concerns of over billing by PDS and its ongoing mass disconnection exercise.

The youth had earlier in the morning of the fateful day Wednesday May 22, 2019 mounted road blocks and pelted the PDS Staff with stones and sticks at Yohe, a community near Odumase Krobo when PDS staff went to the community to discontinue its mass disconnection exercise.

The irate youth smashed a PDS Nissan Pick Up with Registration Number GV 2318-1. It took the intervention of armed Police personnel to rescue the PDS staff.

The PDS staff decided to switch off the transformers cutting off power supply to many communities.

Shortly after the attack, the angry youth mobilized to embark on a protest to petition the MCE but the armed Police rushed to protect the Municipal Assembly Office by preventing the youth from entering the premises.

This led to clashes between the youth and the Police. Many warnings shots were fired to disperse the youth who were also attacking the Police with stones and other implements. The arrival of the reinforcement team from the Regional Police Headquarters saw brute force and indiscriminate dischargebof fire arms leading to the death of a 24 year old young man while seven persons including a final Year JHS student shot in the leg while returning from market.

Thirty-five(35) persons were arrested during the riot.