Information reaching Gye Nyame Concord indicates that residents of Darkuman Nyamekye, a suburb of Accra, who are enraged, have resolved to storm the Accra West branch of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) at Avenor. Their anger stems from persistent power outages, which has become more like a fashion in the locality, thereby making life miserable and uninteresting. “We have taken this line of action because we cannot fathom why we are rendered lip-service for a utility which we pay for almost every month”, some irate residents furiously told this paper.

This situation, residents lamented, has caused more than enough damage to their electrical gadgets such as deep freezers, ghetto blasters, fridges, washing machines, air conditioners and many valuable equipment.

What is more, they claimed that businesses which depend on electricity have run into loses.

According to residents, aside from the load shedding exercise, which they are aware is an on-going exercise, the ECG has not been fair to them for about a decade now as power cuts have become the order of the day, virtually every two days.

To this end, residents cautioned ECG meter readers against coming to give them new electricity bills, noting that the reception would be very cold towards them.

According to them, rampant power outage has given armed robbers and thieves the leeway to rob residents in the area with violence.

The livid residents told this paper that what is more irritating is the total neglect on the part of ECG to find a lasting solution to the problem despite several complaints lodged by residents to the Accra West branch of the company. Gye Nyame Concord further gathered that somewhere in 2003 and 2004, residents of the said area had wanted to take the ECG on by instituting legal action against the company but due to assurance from the company to provide improved services, the residents called it off.

According to the residents, ECG explained that the problem was due to excessive load on the transformer serving the area and that with the passage of time an extra one will be provided to ensure uninterrupted power supply. “But till date we have been living with this problem for far too long and the time to act is now” a residents pointed out.

Worst still, the residents complained that power fluctuation, which is also another issue, has come to aggravate their woes, adding that they often experience low currents of power supply thus making it almost impossible to do anything with electricity.

When contacted, the head of the New Service and Separate Meter Room Four Section of the Accra West Region department of the ECG, Mr. Adu, explained that, the problem might be due to overloading of power supply on the transformer.

“Problems of this nature are normally as a result of overloading of power sharing from a lot of consumers in the vicinity that result in the malfunction of the transformer.”

He urged the residents to be patient with the company, assuring them that the problem will be rectified as soon as possible.