By Jimmy Aglah

Once upon a time, in the Republic of Uncommon Sense, a citizen opened his tap.

Nothing came out.

He waited.

Nothing.

He turned it left. He turned it right. He stared into the mouth of the tap as though water might be hiding there out of shyness.

Still nothing.

Then, at the end of the month, something finally flowed.

The water bill.

Wonderful country.

Residents in parts of Ghana have complained of going for weeks and even months with unreliable water supply while the bills continue arriving with the punctuality of a Swiss train. In Gbetsile and surrounding communities, residents protested precisely this contradiction: unreliable water, but very reliable billing.

Apparently, the one thing Ghana Water can sometimes deliver under pressure is an invoice.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Kumasi, I decided to conduct my own private experiment in national development.

Electricity bills were becoming frightening, so I invested in solar power.

Panels went onto the roof. Batteries arrived. The sun was recruited into the household economy.

I thought I had finally escaped.

After all, if ECG sells electricity and I drastically reduce the electricity I buy from ECG, elementary arithmetic suggests that my ECG bill should also drastically reduce.

That was before I remembered where I live.

The solar panels worked beautifully.

The ECG bill also worked beautifully.

Month after month, the house depended heavily on sunshine, yet the electricity bill continued arriving with the confidence of a landlord who knows you cannot relocate.

At one point I began wondering whether ECG had found a way of metering sunlight.

Perhaps somewhere inside my post-paid meter there is a small officer recording:

• Morning sunshine: 14 units.
• Afternoon sunshine: 22 units.
• Cloudy conditions discount: 3 units.

Total payable to ECG: Please don't ask questions.

But my own billing story had started long before the solar panels arrived.

My wife travelled for three months. My children were away in boarding school. For that period, I was virtually the sole occupant of the house, leaving for work and returning late in the evening.

In any ordinary universe, household electricity consumption should have dropped noticeably.

Three people had effectively disappeared from the domestic energy equation.

But the bills?

They continued arriving with efficient regularity.

My family population had reduced dramatically. My time at home had reduced. The number of people using appliances, lights, televisions, water heaters and everything else had reduced.

The bill apparently did not receive the memo.

Eventually, the matter went before the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission. Following PURC intervention, overbilling on the account was acknowledged, and I was asked to pay GH¢800 monthly towards resolving the accumulated bill instead of the GH¢1,600-plus monthly figures that had been arriving.

That settlement amount by itself does not prove that my true monthly consumption was exactly GH¢800. But it does establish something important: the earlier billing had already become serious enough to require regulatory intervention and adjustment.

Then I installed solar.

One would reasonably expect my dependence on ECG power to fall significantly.

It did.

What apparently did not fall was the bill.

Today, despite much of my household electricity being supplied by solar, the monthly ECG bills are still hovering around the same GH¢1,600 territory that had previously sent me to the PURC.

And now comes the most interesting part.

ECG does not physically read my post-paid meter every month before producing these bills.

Yet the bills arrive monthly, faithfully and confidently.

PURC has itself reported continuing consumer complaints about high or unexpected bills, estimated billing and inaccurate meter readings. It has also reported that some billing challenges have been linked to ECG's transition to a new billing system, with ECG indicating that work was underway to restore full functionality and resolve billing disparities.

So the question is no longer simply whether my bill feels too high.

The question is much more basic:

What exactly is the basis of the bill?

If nobody has taken a fresh physical reading of my functioning post-paid meter, what consumption data is being used to generate the amount? Is it an estimate? Is it based on my historical consumption? Is the system projecting what it thinks I should have consumed? And if so, how quickly does that estimate adjust when the household changes or solar removes a substantial portion of the load from the grid?

Because if the billing system is relying heavily on historical consumption, then my present reality may have changed while the computer continues living comfortably in my past.

My wife may travel. The children may go to boarding school. I may spend most of the day at work. Solar may take over much of the household load.

But somewhere in the system, yesterday's household may still be consuming today's electricity.

And I am hardly alone in asking questions. In 2026, residents in several communities have publicly complained about estimated bills, unexplained charges and bills they say do not correspond with actual consumption. PURC has also reported credit adjustments for consumers after investigations into disputed bills and overbilling.

Nobody is arguing that consumers should enjoy electricity or water without paying for it. Utilities need revenue to generate and purchase power, treat water, maintain infrastructure and keep the system running.

But surely the social contract must work both ways.

If citizens are expected to pay accurately and promptly, utilities must also measure accurately and bill transparently.

A bill should represent consumption, not imagination.

The water may not reach your house.

The electricity may barely enter your house.

But the bill will locate you.

GPS cannot compete.

You can hide behind solar panels, batteries, boreholes and polytanks. Send your wife abroad. Send the children to boarding school. Spend the whole day at work.

The utility bill will still knock gently at the door and say:

"My brother, I have been looking for you."

Perhaps there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for every cedi on my bill. Excellent.

Then show me the opening meter reading, the closing meter reading, the units consumed, the tariff applied and whether the bill is based on an actual reading or an estimate.

That should not require a pilgrimage to PURC.

Because electricity billing should be arithmetic.

It should not require revelation.

And when a customer finally goes to complain, somebody should not merely examine the computer thoughtfully, click two buttons, stare solemnly at the screen and pronounce the most powerful sentence in Ghanaian bureaucracy:

"Boss, according to the system, everything is correct."

In the Republic of Uncommon Sense, the system is always correct.

It is only reality that keeps making mistakes.