ECG were operating a thievery system of billing - Nkansah

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has been accused of operating a thievery billing system until they were ordered by the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) to suspend their billing software two days ago. Consumers had complained over the outrageous billing by ECG over the last six (6) months.

The PURC in their statement said a thorough investigation into complaints about over-billing, concluded that there were, indeed, anomalies associated with the use of the new billing software.

The commission’s monitoring and investigation exercise revealed further that the ECG was billing customers over irregular periods from 18 to 43 days, which was in contravention of the 28-day billing cycle.

But commenting on the issue, Solomon Nkansah, Deputy Communications Officer of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) the new billing system operated by the ECG was nothing but thievery and a calculated attempt to rob consumers of their money.

Furthermore, the PURC said, the ECG was billing customers who had been disconnected over a period of six months with the accumulated debt instead of their monthly actual consumption.

But speaking in an interview with Rainbow Radio, Solomon Nkansah further alleged that it was untrue since the ECG only arranged this way to steal from Ghanaians.

He explained that there are some zones where government gives rebate to consumers and due to that, the ECG used that rebate system to steal from other consumers.

Solomon Nkansah added, the NDC as a government has fought against the new billing which was not good for consumers.

Meanwhile, Deputy Communications Director of the opposition NPP, Mike Ocquaye Jnr. says it is not enough to accuse the ECG of running a thievery system when the President can easily hire and fire the board of the ECG.

He argues, if Solomon Nkansah and his government believes that the ECG are not delivering on their mandate as required, then they should axe any one who they feel has underperformed.