ECG Refunds Credit To 333,902 Pre-Paid Customers - Jinapor

The Ministry of Power has said a substantial number of electricity pre-paid customers who were unduly debited following the recent hike in tariffs have received a refund.

According to the Deputy Minister of Power, Mr John Jinapor, about 333,902 customers on the pre-paid meter system have received refunds.

He said the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) was still in the process of crediting pre-paid customers. The company has a pre-paid customer base of about 531,014.

Customers of the ECG have been complaining about their credits "vanishing" even when most of their appliances are off.

But speaking on Citi FM Thursday morning, Mr Jinapor explained that the problem was caused by a defect in the configuration of the new tariffs.

He said the pre-paid system was configured to rise from the first of every month “but they informed me that the tariff adjustment took effect on the 15th and so it calibrated as if it was working from the 1st. And so I’ve asked them to work on the system so that we don’t have a recurrence of the situation.”

He said the ECG was in the process of rectifying the anomalies and assured customers that the challenged would not reoccur.

 “…for instance when I bought 500 and I slot in my card I got back about 400 so my card immediately told me that I have a credit of about 900 Ghana Cedis instead of the 500 that I bought,” he said.

The Deputy Minister also indicated that the Power Ministry was in the process of moving customers on the pre-paid meter system on to a common platform in order to ease their access to electricity credits when they run out.

“The uni-meter objective is to graduate to a common platform because as it stands, if I’m in Tema, I cannot go to East Legon and buy credit. We are congregating all these meters unto a common platform and we have identified a consultant to help us. So that, first of all, irrespective of where you are, you should be able to buy your credit from anywhere,” he noted.