The Ada District Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has held a public education to sensitise the members of both the East and West Ada Assemblies on its operations. Meeting the assembly members of the two districts was important, for they were close to their electorate.
And as leaders who had close access to the people, the Ada ECG believed that the assembly members could, consequently, educate their electorate to understand the operations of the ECG and the need to support the company to continue to provide reliable services to Ghanaians.
Speaking to The Chronicle on the sidelines, Sakyiwaa Mensah, Tema Regional ECG Public Relations Officer (PRO), said the issues discussed included illegal connections, which most often saw some customers either tampering with the meters, or bypassing them.
She mentioned prosecution and debt payment as sanctions for illegal connections, however, explained that a moratorium was given to ECG customers who willingly report anomalies on their own within a certain period.
Such customers, Miss Sakyiwaa said, would neither be prosecuted nor have their names published, but would still pay whatever debt there was. On billing challenges, she said customers who had issues must call the ECG office to report for corrections.
Similarly, she said customers with technical challenges involving their meters must call ECG to report, “because hiring a non-ECG person to tamper with our meters is a criminal offence.”
Another issue the ECG personnel discussed with the assembly members was the need for people to keep away from all ECG properties, including poles, meters and transformers.
Sakyiwaa Mensah edumerated that all ECG poles had unique codes/numbers on them, enabling the company to move to the site should a fault be reported, and that the pole number be given.
“However, the public keeps pasting posters on the poles. These cover the codes and impede work. We will entreat the public to stop pasting posters on our poles if they want us to quickly trace faults and resolve them early,” she said.
Godwin Agudey, the Presiding Member for the East Ada District Assembly, in his remarks, said: “I am grateful you (ECG) came to make a beautiful presentation to us. It feels much better to know what the situation is than to be in the dark. Now, we the people’s representatives can explain to our people what the ECG challenges are and what you are doing about them.
“I have personally learnt a lot and we are grateful. We look forward to much more useful interactions in the future.”
Philip Tettey Sai, Presiding Member for the West Ada District Assembly, also shared similar sentiments and asked for more community engagements.
