ECG to invest GH¢82 million in Central Region — Lumor
The Central Regional Office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is to invest GH¢82 million in its operations to expand and stabilise power supply in the region.
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The Central Regional General Manager of the ECG, Emmanuel Lumor, who made this known at an interaction with the media last Monday, said the amount would go into the provision of 200 transformers across the region, the replacement of rotten poles and 180,000 non-smart meters and prepaid meters with smart prepaid meters.
The smart meters, he said, would be installed at Swedru, Kasoa, Winneba and Cape Coast.
Mr Lumor said the investment would also go into extending electricity to some communities.
He further stated that more than 300,000 postpaid meters in the Central Region would be replaced with prepaid meters.
Switching stations
He said ECG would put up switching stations at Twifo Praso and Breman Asikuma to evacuate power to the region from Oda in the Eastern Region, as well as from the Western Region, in case of power shortages, to ensure a stable electricity supply.
He stated that politicians would not be giving meters out in their communities as part of this year's electioneering campaign and that the ECG would ensure electricity meters were solely distributed by the company.
He indicated that often, beneficiaries of the meters shared by politicians undertook illegal connections; thus, depriving the company of millions of cedis in revenue.
He said others also managed to secure fake meters from other sources for installation, warning that the security agencies would be used to clamp down on offenders.
Last year alone, he said the ECG managed to track 31,000 of such fake meters in the region and recouped about GH¢6 million from users of such meters.
Mr Lumor urged all stakeholders to comply to help reduce illegalities and bring some sanity into the operations of the ECG.
Appeal
He appealed to all stakeholders to help to trace and surcharge such users of fake meters, adding that if anyone needed meters he should apply to the ECG and he would have it in 10 days.
He said the company would roll out an operation "no free consumption" campaign to ensure customers paid for what was used.
Mr Lumor said the company was working to reduce outages to the barest but explained that some of the power outages were beyond their control and came from other stakeholders along the value chain.
He said last year, ECG injected 210 transformers in its operations in the region and replaced 27,000 faulty postpaid meters, as well as 25,000 non-smart prepaid meters with smart ones, replaced 420 rotten poles and undertook maintenance works to improve efficiency.