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The Deputy Minister of Power, Mr John Jinapor has directed the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Energy Commission to conduct an audit on the metering system of the Italian restaurant, Bread and Wine Restaurant, operating in Accra.

The restaurant which employs about 50 people has threatened to close down over "outrageous" electricity bills by the end of March.

According to them, their charges could not reflect their consumption, however, officials of the ECG in their response to their concerns said they should leave the country if they could not operate.

In a Facebook post, the management of the restaurant last week Wednesday said: "Dear friends and clients, after receiving a couple of electricity bills, 30,000 Ghc/month (7,000 Euros/month), we are sorry to announce that Bread&Wine will close its doors at the end of March 2016.”

The management said, they could not continue to pay more than GHȻ30, 000 of electricity bills monthly, whiles they run their business at losses. They claimed that their bills shot up from GHȻ6,000 in 2014 to about GHȻ30,000 recently, since the meter was changed to an automatic metering system by the ECG.

Following the issues, the deputy Minister of Power, visited the restaurant last Friday where he held a short close door meeting with the owner of the restaurant who only gave his name as Nicholas, and the Public Relations Manager of the ECG, Mr William Boateng.

Briefing the media after the meeting, the Minister said he has directed the ECG and the Energy Commission to run some test on the metering system of the restaurant to find out the problem.

He said the ECG should also audit the meters of other companies since there has been numerous complaints over the automatic metering system.

He told the ECG to submit the report by Wednesday, March 2, 2016.

The Minister urged the staff of ECG to be courteous and respect consumers and customers who expressed their concern over to them.

The owner, Mr Nicholas in response said depending on the outcome of the report after the auditing the management will decide their next line of action.

"If we still have to continue operating we will but if nothing changes, we will close the restaurant" he said.