{"id":224369,"date":"2016-06-21T19:25:25","date_gmt":"2016-06-21T19:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=224369"},"modified":"2016-06-21T19:25:25","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T19:25:25","slug":"ecg-over-billing-will-be-over-soon-be-patient-mahama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/06\/ecg-over-billing-will-be-over-soon-be-patient-mahama\/","title":{"rendered":"ECG over-billing will be over soon; be patient &#8211; Mahama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President John Dramani Mahama has pleaded with Ghanaians affected by the recent supposed over-billing by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), to exercise restraint as authorities are working to fix the problem by the\u00a0end of this month.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">Addressing residents of Madina and Atomic during his \u2018Accounting to the People Tour\u2019 of the Greater Accra Region today [Tuesday], President Mahama said he was very confident that all anomalies with the billing system would be resolved during the next billing cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">\u201cBecause the electricity bill is done on monthly cycles, they have to start on the first of month with a new billing cycle,\u00a0and so I have asked Ghanaians to exercise patience. From Ist July, they will start a new billing cycle, and I am sure a lot of you will see a lot of relief in electricity bills.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Suspend \u2018problematic\u2019 billing software \u2013 PURC to ECG\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), in May 2016, instructed the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), to suspend the implementation of their new billing software until further notice.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0statement signed by the PURC\u2019s Public Relations Director, Nana Yaa Jantuah, said the directive was necessitated by\u00a0incessant complaints from\u00a0customers who alleged that they were being over-billed by\u00a0the ECG.<\/p>\n<p>But staff of ECG have accused government of being responsible for the high tariffs following the increases and the introduction of taxes. Electricity tariffs up by 59.2%, water 67.2% ahead of Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>The PURC late last year sanctioned an increase of 59.2 percent and 67.2 percent for electricity and water tariffs respectively. But businesses and individuals expressed displeasure with the increase which they described as\u00a0astronomical.<\/p>\n<p>The President&#8217;s assurances came as outraged residents of Nungua, Teshie and Labadi, took to the the streets of Accra in their numbers, to show their displeasure with what they call the <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/06\/21\/teshie-nungua-la-residents-protest-killer-ecg-tariffs-photos\/\">\u2018killer tariffs\u2019 <\/a><\/strong><\/span>by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0demonstrators have called\u00a0on government to reduce the suffocating tariffs, or face more protests.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Praying for rain<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whilst blaming errors in ECG&#8217;s billing system for the high tariffs, President Mahama\u00a0also\u00a0blamed\u00a0reasons for the high bills on\u00a0the dwindling capacity of hydro dams.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The bills went so high because our hydro dams are low and hydro is the cheapest source of power, and now all the power we are producing is either with gas or crude oil, and these are more expensive than hydro.\u00a0But we are praying that this year, the rains will be good so that the dam will recover. As we put in cheaper hydro power, we will adjust the tariffs to reflect that in the cheaper power, that we are getting.\u00a0So I will ask Ghanaians to exercise patience and that government is sensitive to what is going on, and we will do our best to give them some relief,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President John Dramani Mahama has pleaded with Ghanaians affected by the recent supposed over-billing by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), to exercise restraint as authorities are working to fix the problem by the\u00a0end of this month. Addressing residents of Madina and Atomic during his \u2018Accounting to the People Tour\u2019 of the Greater Accra Region [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ECG over-billing will be over soon; be patient - Mahama - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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