The Traditional Council of the Krobo land has called for neutral technical people to be contracted to assess the prepaid meters to ensure that the old debts have not been embedded in them before they are installed.
Nene Olepeme Sakinor, Chief of Suinso Okwemya in the Manya Krobo explained to Alfred Ocansey on 3FM Sunrise Morning Show that based on past experience with the billing system by the ECG, the residents of the Krobo land cannot trust the ECG to programme the old debts on the new prepaid meters.
To that end, he said, the installation of prepaid meters should be halted for the residents to be well educated on the workings of the prepaid meter.
According to the traditional leader, they are not officially aware of the planned installation of prepaid meters because that is not what they are expecting now.
“We saw a press release that now that the electricity has been restored, the installation of the prepaid meters is going to be resumed. We saw it three days ago,” he said.
He iterated that the people of Krobo land are not opposing the installation of prepaid meters but the ways by which the ECG is using to install the prepaid is what they are against.
Nene Olepeme Sakinor mentioned that residents are pessimistic that the problems of overbilling they faced with the postpaid meters would be encountered again with the prepaid that is why they are opposing it.
“Even though the power has been restored, we still have problems with ECG. We suspect that these prepaid meters would be programmed to still charge us for the old debt” Nene opined.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Yilo Krobo Municipal Health Directorate, Irina Ofei has stated that the installation of prepaid electricity meters in the Manya and Yilo Krobo municipalities is the right way to go since it would enable the residents to budget and regulate their electricity consumption.
She revealed it was difficult for the hospital to operate for several days without electricity and expressed gratitude to the Municipal Chief Executive, Traditional Council and all those who helped to get the electricity restored.
Irina Ofei also urged all stakeholders to cooperate to ensure that a lasting solution to the electricity issues in the municipality is attained.
The ECG took Manya and Yilo Krobo Municipalities off the national power supply from 27 July, 2022 over disagreement on electricity bills. However, the electricity was restored on Friday 19 August around 8 PM after the intervention of the National Security.
By Samuel Afriyie Owusu|3news.com|Ghana