Head of Research at the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), Benjamin Nsiah, says the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) need to compensate affected customers for the current technical glitches with the prepayment vending system.
As of Monday, September 26, 2022, the ECG’s prepaid metering system was unable to provide services to its customers, leaving many houses around the nation in the dark.
In a press release made by the ECG on September 28, 2022, the power distributor acknowledged dealing with technical issues that had impacted prepaid metering systems and stopped the sale of prepaid electricity credit nationwide.
Having been a victim of the challenge, he shared in the plights of several Ghanaians as he reiterated that these technical glitches would have caused damage to properties and other resources.
In an interview with Sefah Danquah on e.tv Ghana’s Fact Sheet Benjamin Nsiah shared, “I’ve been a victim myself with the systemic hiccups at ECG and for the past week I’ve not been able to top up my power and for that matter I’m in darkness. I’m also waiting to hear from ECG in terms of compensating us because I have a lot of things in my deep freezer that are going waste because of this particular challenge.”
According to him, the failure of ECG to conduct the necessary checks and conduct systemic updates has resulted in an alarming crisis. He charged the ECG to upgrade its essential services and technology.
“I may probably not call it a challenge because I think at appropriate times or at any particular time ECG needs to upgrade it services and upgrade ICT systems and necessary platforms so that some of these would be prevented. Any time such a challenges occur for more than a day there are a lot of distractions and havocs caused in homes, firms and other institutions. Again I’m also a victim of these hiccups and I think I need to be compensated and at the appropriate time we need to reconsider some of these decisions in terms of what the consumer would deal with ECG,” he added.
Meanwhile, The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has been ordered by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to compensate its consumers who have been impacted by the ongoing problems with the prepaid vending system.
The directive is “in compliance with the law and a demonstration of good customer service,” according to the PURC.
By: Jude Tackie
