Between July and August 2024, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) experienced a revenue shortfall of over GH¢893,158,654 due to the ongoing upgrade of its prepayment metering system.
This loss resulted from customers not paying for the actual power consumed, existing debts, and the replacement of malfunctioning or obsolete meters.
William Boateng, ECG’s Director of Communications, explained that the upgrade was necessary to replace obsolete meters, such as the BXC, PNX, Ecash 1-4, Nuri, and BOT models, which were no longer functioning accurately.
This mandatory replacement, sanctioned by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), is expected to stabilize the situation and improve revenue once completed.
Boateng assured customers that credit balances on old meters would be refunded either remotely or through generated tokens that can be manually loaded onto the new meters. He urged patience during the reconciliation process.
Customers with faulty meters who were not purchasing power would still be billed based on their consumption history.
Those found to be in debt would be given a payment plan.
The upgrade is part of the Loss Reduction Project (LRP) aimed at transitioning to a more advanced and automated metering system, which had been hampered by communication failures with the old system.
As of July, the upgrade has affected approximately 935,962 meters, with 488,223 old meters replaced. The project is ongoing, with the company working to reconcile accounts and address customer concerns.
