The Tema Region of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has started a mass metre replacement project to provide customers with upgraded prepaid meters that function remotely without an intermediary.
The project seeks to replace all prepaid meters that use cards, for which the credit had to be loaded onto the cards that are swiped in the meter to load the credit.
The new meters, known as smart prepaid meters, work such that once customers buy credit, it will be loaded directly onto the meter.
Ms. Sakyiwaa Mensah, the Tema Regional PRO for the power distributor, told The Chronicle in Tema that the project will cover customers using older versions of prepaid meters within the Tema Metropolis, Prampram, Afienya, Nungua, and Ashaiman areas.
“The replacements do not cost the customer, even if it will include possible re-routing,” she added.
Responding to the need to change from prepaid meters to another type of prepaid meters, Ms. Sakyiwaa indicated that as technology is growing and changing, the company is positioning itself to change with the trends.
Thus, the smart prepaid meters being deployed would bring more convenience to customers, as instances of missing cards and the need to replace these cards would be a thing of the past.
She, therefore, appealed to the general public to be receptive to their field workers, to question them if in doubt, and to demand to see ID cards where necessary.
Nii Kwei Codjoe, who is the Marketing Officer for ECG, Tema Region, on his part, encouraged customers to be vigilant and not succumb to any possible fraud issues, as “unscrupulous people often call unsuspecting customers whenever such projects are being worked on, in an attempt to swindle them.”
He stated that ECG does not accept payments on the field, adding that the organisation has gone cashless and that all transactions must be made digitally to the organisation.
