The Electricity Company of Ghana Ltd. (ECG) has begun the installation of smart prepaid meters for some traders in the Agbogbloshie market.

The exercise is to halt power theft, prevent market fires, reduce commercial losses and enhance efficiency.

The Korle-bu District Manager of ECG, Solomon Tsawe in an interview said, “A technical assessment we conducted revealed that customers had engaged in several types of illegalities in our network at the market. These smart meters will make it difficult for such illegal practices to persist; thus, reducing our commercial losses and enhancing efficiency."

The traders include; members of the cold store and corn millers’ association, welders and artisans who use power.

The District Manager said the smart meters were compliant with the new Meter Management System (MMS) recently launched by the ECG.

He said the system integrated all smart meters into a common platform for easy monitoring on the field.

Mr Tsawe said through the MMS, the Company could easily locate faulty meters on the field, monitor the consumption pattern of customers and identify customers who engaged in illegalities.

He said another benefit of MMS compliant smart meters was that customers could purchase power from anywhere in the country.

General Manager, Accra West Region of ECG, Ebenezer Ghunney advised customers to desist from engaging in illegalities and report people cheating the system to the nearest ECG office or call 0551444011.

He said ECG, by Executive Instrument (EI) 38 of the Appointment of Public Prosecution Instrument (2010), had the authority to prosecute persons who engaged in illegalities in its network.

Mr Ghunney said apart from keeping the identity of whistleblowers confidential, the Company also rewarded them with six percent of the recovered amounts and urged the public to report people engaged in illegal connections to ECG’s Revenue Task Force.

It will be recalled that some cold store and corn mill operators at the Agbogbloshie Market in March 2021, kicked against the smart prepaid meter replacement exercise over fears of paying higher for electricity consumption.

Their position changed after the ECG held several stakeholder meetings with them on the practical benefits of smart meters over analogue meters, the Ghana News Agency was told.