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Rocky55 Blog of Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Source: Isaac Appiah
When John Jinapor takes over as Energy Minister, the headache and excessive expenses that energy users must pay to purchase Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) meters may come to an end.
Although ECG meters are not officially for sale, customers can install them at their premises to use power by paying additional service fees.
Despite the agreements, ongoing shortages and the laborious procedures required to obtain a meter force customers to pay middlemen to procure meters.
The trend has led to the rise of scammers and syndicates, some of which involve dishonest ECG employees and contractors employed by the power distributor to defraud consumers.
There have been numerous reports and complaints, with a separate meter that costs a little over GH¢800 cedis being
John Abdulai Jinapor, the Energy Minister-designate, has proposed buying meters in bulk to cut costs and formally offer them to customers at lower prices in order to solve the ongoing problem.
On Monday, January 13, Mr. Jinapor presented a solution to the Appointment Committee for Vetting of Parliament.
People are unable to obtain the meters they desire. We are looking into the potential of selling the meters because technology is developing. Allow anyone to purchase the meters, but we will grant licenses to a select few to install them using smart technology; however, you will need to send a code. Since mobile money can occasionally cost more than four dollars, once you send the code, it is activated and you are automatically enrolled on the system.
Therefore, I’m confident that the price will decrease if you make it easily accessible and take use of economies of scale. Therefore, we are thinking about it.
In the meantime, Mr. Jinapor said that in order to improve income collection, over half of the system’s installed meters need to be completely replaced because they are not operating.
He disclosed that there were 4.8 million active meters out of 5.2 million in ECG.
Nevertheless, “they will need to change a minimum of 2.9 million meters in order to satisfy the market, as approximately 3 million of them are not functioning properly.”