Consumers of electricity in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta Region have staged a protest against the Electricity Company of Ghana over what they describe as outrageous monthly tariffs.

Several affected customers who joined in the demonstration on Wednesday said the Denu District of ECG is billing them beyond their consumption and urged the company to review its billing mechanisms.

The affected customers, most of whom are non-commercial consumer households, have outstanding bills ranging from GH₵ 2000 to GH₵ 10,000.

Others who run shops have even more to pay, with some estimated bills as high as GH₵19,000 and GH₵40,000.

These staggering amounts, according to them, are way above their consumption.

“I use a fridge, a fan, and three bulbs at home. My monthly bills for the whole of last year were not above GHC100, but recently, ECG stopped bringing bills for two months, and the next time they came, the figure rose to GHC2,151.”

“When I followed up with ECG at Denu, they only asked me to be paying small, small. Ever since, I have been paying GHC200 every month, and yet the amount keeps increasing,” an aggrieved customer told Starrfm.com.gh.

Janet is also one of the many affected customers. Janet runs a small hairdressing shop in Denu.

She told the reporter that the high electricity charges are killing her business since she does not make enough from it, adding that even if she does, she simply cannot understand why she has to pay so much for gadgets that obviously consume less electricity.

“See the things I use here (pointing her fingers to a hairdryer, a ceiling fan, and a bulb), but my bill is way above GHC 2,000. How do I pay for this? I don’t even make that much because I am the only person here, no apprentice,” Janet lamented.

After several complaints and attempts to seek clarification from the company without success, the affected customers took to the streets to protest.

The protest march that began in Aflao was abruptly terminated, several meters away from the premises of ECG in Denu, following a decision by the police not to allow the protesters to get closer to the walls of the company.

Edem Mensah Viglo is one of the convenors.

“The reason the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has fixed energy meters on our premises as a measuring instrument is to measure what we consume.

“It is therefore unreasonable to have these energy meters in our homes to measure our daily consumption, but still, we are receiving outrageous bills in the name of predictive or estimated bills. We want to put it on record that we are law-abiding citizens and are ready to pay for what we have consumed as recorded by the meters fixed by the company itself in our homes and shops,” he said.

To address their concerns, the protesters also called for an audit of meters across the operational areas of the company in the Denu District, among other demands.

“The problematic billing software should be suspended, replaced, or modified to ensure accurate meter readings and billings; the disconnection of customers with errors in their bills must stop with immediate effect until they are resolved; ECG must make prepaid meters optional (for those who would wish to have prepaid meters); and ECG should do an audit of meters in the areas under Denu ECG because there are a lot of illegal meters in the system, making the government lose a lot of revenue. They know it, we know it, they know we know it, and we know they know it (illegal meters bought from Togo and Nigeria),” they said.

Above all, the protesters asked that “the company must respect customer service: train staff at the Denu office to treat customers with dignity and professionalism.”

The convenors were, however, allowed by the police to meet with the management of the company to present their petition, which was received by the district manager, Timothy Affrem, who gave assurances that the company would take a look at the matters raised.

The issue of ECG overbilling its customers is a major worry to residents in most parts of Southern Volta who are still on post-paid meters following the introduction of the spot-billing software, an electronic billing system that captures consumption from a customer’s meter.