The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) says its ongoing exercise of replacing old pre-paid meters with new ones known as smart meters is intended to reduce commercial losses to the company and enhance quality service delivery.

In an interview with Today, the Public Relations Manager of ECG, William Boateng, stressed that commercial losses were seriously affecting the company’s operations.

“Commercial losses to ECG are about10%, and this translates into millions of Ghana cedis,” he disclosed.

According to him, what accounts for the 10% commercial losses is as a result of meter tampering by consumers.

This practice, he said, is denying ECG its much needed revenue.

“The replacement of the meters is part of our efforts to reduce our commercial losses and stop meter tampering. And so we introduced the smart metering technology where pre-paid meters are no longer installed in homes but installed on electricity poles,” he explained.

He went on to state that the replacement of the meters is being done at no charge to consumers.

He emphasised that consumers have no business to touch the pre-paid meters on the electricity poles “since we have done that to make it visible and transparent and to allow for random and frequent checks by ECG officials.”

He said the new pre-paid meters have an interface device that is installed in houses which allows consumers the chance to check their power consumption.

Although public education was done before the start of the project, Mr. Boateng gave the assurance that his outfit will intensify its efforts in this area to avoid misinformation.

“And this we will do through the distribution of flyers, public advertisements, interaction with communities and churches among others,” he said.

“Our doors are also opened for comments and submissions from consumers regarding the exercise,” the ECG PRO added.