The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Kejetia Traders Association, Mr. Rueben Amer, has confirmed to The Chronicle that about 8,000 stalls in the Kumasi City Market Limited rely on a bulk Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) meter.
This confirmation by the PRO follows several demands by the traders that they should be given separate meters at the US$259 million market facility.
Apart from the load on the ECG meter, The Chronicle understands the traders had issues with the billing system as well and that the charge does not reflect what they use across board.
The PRO further told The Chronicle that his outfit understands the concerns of the traders to have separate meters and that they had already discussed the issue with ECG.
According to him, as of now, the ECG has been able to provide them with 2000 meters out of the 8000 request they put before the power distributing company.
He said that the exercise was being done in three phases and the 2000 meters were the first tranche of the 8000 request.
He added that prefixing activities would be carried out and meter boards would be fixed at each shop, after which the Energy Commission would certify and pave way for ECG to go ahead and fix the meters for them.
These 2000 meters, Rueben said, would not be operational when fixed, owing to the fact that they could result in double billing of shop owners, because the whole market is connected to a bulk meter.
The request for these meters, according to Rueben, came at the back of skyrocketing electricity bills being paid by the shop owners, because thousands of shops in the market have been hooked to one meter.
Asked when the exercise would be over, PRO Amer disclosed that there would be a durbar by management and traders sometime in September 2024, where stakeholders such as the ECG, managers of Kumasi City Market Limited and Kejetia Traders Association would formally commission all the prepaid meters for each shop.
The ECG Ashanti Regional PRO, Mrs Grace Garshong, told The Chronicle on phone that the ECG, through the Kumasi City Market Limited, had reached a consensus and the former would provide 8000 prepaid meters to the market, adding that they were looking forward to meeting the demands of the traders.
Meanwhile, an attempt to reach the Managing Director of KCML, Duffour Addae, proved futile, as he failed to respond to calls and text messages sent to him.
The market was on Wednesday, this week, gutted by fire, which cause is yet to be determined by the Ghana National Fire Service.
The same market was flooded last week after three hours of heavy downpour. Several traders were counting their losses after the flooding, only to be hit by another disaster.
