ECG PRE-PAID METERS

The ECG until a few years ago , have been sending their personnel to
residential and non-residential premises to read credit meters and
also deliver bills. They then switched to Pre-paid meters installed in
both residential and non-residential premises, although not all credit
meters have been changed. The meters installed were not of the same
kind although they were installed by same ECG. There were different
methods of loading money.
The latest project by ECG with regards to pre-paid meters is a worry
to some people, especially those in residential houses.

Which other country,apart from Ghana, removes the electricity
pre-paid meters installed in residential houses, line several meters,
then fix it to a pole some where on the street, so that if you want to
reload it , you have walk to the street, whether there is
rain,shine,day,night,dawn ,etc .?
Forgetting the other security risk like an armed robber having access
to it by tampering with your power source outside your home before
even coming close to your house.When your power goes ,example at 2am,
you have to unlock all your doors, walk to the pole on the street and
reload.what if its an armed robber who has tampered with it ? By
unlocking all your doors, you have given free access to the robbers

The issue of the meter catching fire, which has already been reported,
is of great concern too. The meters which are fix to a pole are
installed by lining three or four on a pole. Should one catch fire,
the rest of the meters also get affected ,meaning more houses in an
area gets no power and extra cost to ECG to replace all ,although they
would have just replaced one if the meter was left in the house.
In spite of the fact that, they have not fished changing all 'Credit
Meters' to Pre-Paid,and with the soon to be be introduced 'Smart
Pre-Paid Meters' in 2014 , they are replacing existing pre-paid to
these 'pole meters'.
These among other factors are the reasons why ECG should rethink on
this replacement of pre-paid meters. One head from ECG on tv said its
a pilot project, well, their attention is been drawn to the fact that
they are placing their consumers lives in danger especially having to
make a consumer leave his/her secured house to go to the street to
reload credit to the pre-paid meter.

The President has directed that government officials living in
government premises should have pre-paid meters installed. With this
kind of 'pole meters ' and considering the security concerns above, is
the ECG not also placing their lives in danger? Or since they are
government officials, they will have theirs in their compound but the
'Ordinary Ghanaian ' ,as we are described, will have to walk to the
street to reload

The simple suggestion is that, they can go ahead and change the
meters, but should not fix them outside on a pole. One might say it
will curb illegal installation, but issue is these connections are
done by their own people. They should clean their house of people who
engage in that, and not put the consumers lives at risk.
The ECG may have good intentions to improve their services but this
improvement should not at the detriment of the people they are serving