The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Volta Region, has warned its customers that they have 14 days to pay their bills or face disconnection in their mass revenue mobilisation move.
Michael Buabin, the Acting Volta Regional General Manager, disclosed this at a media briefing after the company’s just ended one month national revenue mobilisation exercise which saw the ECG recoup more than 40 million Ghana Cedis in the Volta and parts of Oti Region.
According to Mr Buabin, “when the company gives you a bill, you have to pay the full amount within 14 days and failure to do so will lead to disconnection as stated in PURC Regulation LI 2413.
“For example, the national exercise we did covered outstanding debts till February bills, hence the last bill we sent to our customers was the March bill which we know most of them received it more than 14 days ago. If you received your March bill between 1st and 10th April, 2023 and you have not paid, know that you are due for disconnection so please go and pay. For those who have paid fully, we thank them for this patriotic act of paying for electricity consumed but for those who have not paid, our revenue officers will be visiting them soon,” he said.
Mr Buabin reiterated that ECG as a company does not take delight in disconnecting customers.
“We buy and sell power, hence the more a customer consumes power, the more the company makes money so we don’t take delight in disconnecting customers since we don’t get revenue from unserved power. However, disconnection which is mostly the last resort is carried out in order to prevent the customer from accruing more debts and to enable the company gather more revenue to keep the electricity supply chain running.
“We are not at war with our customers and as a company we understand their plight, hence the 14 days grace period before any disconnection. However, there are instances where customers have been disconnected the same day they received a bill but the disconnection was due to previous arrears and not the current bill.
“When you receive a bill from ECG, at the right bottom, there are three columns namely; CURRENT BILL which is your consumption for that particular month alone, PREVIOUS BALANCE which is what you owe ECG before your current bill was generated and AMOUNT PAYABLE which is the total amount of CURRENT BILL and PREVIOUS BALANCE. So if we bring your current bill and you had a previous balance which shows u owe ECG, we can disconnect you on the previous balance,” he clarified.
Ruforson Ernest Ativui, the Volta Regional Revenue Protection Manager, revealed that during the recent revenue mobilisation exercise, “we also noticed that some customers, both individuals and organisations prevented our staff from getting access to their meters and in some instances prevented them from leaving their premises after disconnection was done.”
He cautioned the general public, especially persons and organisations who are preventing staff of the company from getting access to their meters to desist from the act since such obstructions are hindering the smooth operations and called on the general public to allow them to do their job.