Residents of Mafi Agbadzikope and adjourning communities in the Central Tongu District of Volta Region now have lights, five years after electricity was extended there following a Joy news report.

When Joy news visited the community in February this year, the residents complained that half a decade after government extended electricity poles and lines to the communities through the self-help project, they continued to live in darkness because they had not been provided with electric meters.

The residents showed the news team receipts of payments made to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to benefit from meters under the self help project but they had not been supplied.

They told Joy News’ Joseph Opoku Gakpo the situation was hampering the provision of quality education to children and business activities there. 

According to Volta Regional PRO of the ECG, Fred Baimbill-Johnson, when their attention was drawn to the report, they wrote to the Power Ministry to get the meters for the residents under the Self Help Project but to no avail.

“You will realize that there were media reports that for about five or six years, the residents in the Mafi Zongo Electoral area had made some payments to benefit from self-help electrification project but haven’t been served with meters to enjoy electricity… when it came to our attention, we made representation to the Ministry of Power to supply them but there was no response,” he explained.

Mr. Baimbill-Johnson says ECG officials moved in to engage community leaders on the problem in March. The ECG then decided to list the communities on its post-Self Help Project which saw each beneficiary pay 60 cedis each for the meters instead of the regular 400 cedis amount.

The meters have since been supplied and the residents are benefitting from electricity. The beneficiary communities which were supplied with the meters are Mafi-Agbadzikope, Mafi-Zongo, Mafi-Seva, Mafi Amerika, Mafi- Adiekpe, Mafi- Manase and Mafi -Wudzrolo-Ahloevi.

Assemblyman for the Mafi Zongo Electoral Area Julius Karl Fieve told Joy News the residents are happy the communities now have lights. He said this will improve security in the area at night and also enhance academic activities there.