ECG joins forces with military, Assembly to fill potholes in Somanya

Correspondence from Eastern Region

Potholes are road users’ no.1 enemy. With certain parts of the country experiencing heavy rains at the moment, new potholes are created and existing ones get worse.

The Yilo Krobo Municipal of the Eastern Region is not exempted from the situation with many potholes lining some of its streets.

Instead of waiting around for municipal authorities to fix them, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) with the support of the military and the local Assembly on May Day as part of the Company's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) took it upon itself to fix up the roads by filling up the potholes.

The idea to patch up the roads according to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in the Tema Region, Miss Mary Sakyibea Mensah, aside from being a social responsibility was also intended to help fix parts of the damaged road network for the comfort of road users.

“As part of the workers’ day, we have decided to undertake this social activity which is on the Djaba road and parts of the main Somanya road. We also have staff who are citizens of the land, the road serves all of us, it’s been motorable for some time now, we’re doing this as part of our social responsibility to make it a bit easier for road users,” she said.

She stressed that the Company takes its corporate social responsibilities seriously, adding that more of similar activities would be undertaken in the future.

Addressing the soldiers prior to the day-long activity, Municipal Chief Executive for Yilo Krobo, Hon Eric Tetteh noted that the exercise projected the personnel as professionals mandated to join in nation-building.

“If today you’re here to make our road motorable, I think it’s something that we need to celebrate,” the MCE expressed. “I want my people to understand that you just came here to do your work, you didn’t come here to torment people, you didn’t come here to terrorize people, you didn’t come here to just attack people but you just came here to do your work and that there’s no way this country can work without the military.”

The Assembly chief said the soldiers were undertaking social responsibility, contrary to the perception that the personnel were brought in to terrorize the people, adding that the military was a friend and not an enemy to the people. “These people that people said were coming to attack us are the same people we see here today fixing our roads,” he said.

He expressed hope for the perpetuity of the current cordial relationship between the people and the military.

Hon. Eric Tetteh said similar exercises were important in the future as an interim step to maintain the roads as the Assembly awaits an intervention from the central government to permanently address the problems of bad roads in some parts of the municipality and urged residents to adopt the habit of fixing potholes in front of their homes and shops.

Update on prepaid metering exercise

Giving an update on the deployment of prepaid metering system in the Yilo Krobo and Lower Manya Krobo Municipals began in June 2022, Miss Sakyiwaa noted that despite the initial hindrances which posed challenges to the exercise, the Company nevertheless managed to undertake the exercise with the installation currently in its final stages.

“We’ve been able to go through with the installation of the meters for almost all the customers here and we’re currently doing some mop up here as there are some customers whose meters have not been replaced yet so we’re currently doing the mop up to replace all these meters,” said the PRO.

She expressed ECG’s appreciation to all stakeholders including the minister and ministry of energy, national security, the military, Ghana police, traditional authorities, religious leaders, staff and management of the ECG in the Tema Region and the media whose cooperation resulted in the successful deployment of the meters to the Krobo area.

She described the current working relationship with its customers in the area as cordial and further assured that similar activities would be undertaken in the coming days to strengthen its bond with the people.