The Tema Regional Office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has started a mass meter replacement project to provide customers with upgraded prepaid meters.

The Tema Regional Public Relations Officer of the ECG, Sakyiwaa Mensah, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Tema that the new meters function remotely without an intermediary. 

Ms Mensah said the exercise sought to replace all prepaid meters that use cards, which required the credit to be loaded onto the cards for the cards to be shown and swiped in the meter before they would be loaded for use. 

She stated that the new meters, known as smart prepaid meters, work in such a way that once customers buy the credit, it will be loaded directly into the meter as they do not use any such cards.

She said the exercise would cover customers using older versions of prepaid meters within the Tema Metropolis, Prampram, Afienya, Nungua, and Ashaiman areas.

The PRO said these replacements do not cost the customer, even if they would include re-routing. 

Nii Kwei Codjoe, the Marketing Officer for ECG Tema Region, encouraged customers to be on the alert in order not to succumb to any possible fraud issues, as unscrupulous people often call unsuspecting customers whenever such projects were being worked on to dupe them.

He reminded customers that ECG does not accept payments on the field, adding that the organisation had gone cashless and that all transactions must be made digitally to the organisation and not physically. 

On the need to change from one prepaid meter to another, he said that as technology kept growing and changing, the company was also positioning itself to change with the times.

He added that the smart prepaid meters being deployed would also bring more convenience to customers, as instances of missing cards and the need to replace them would be a thing of the past. 

He asked the public to be receptive to ECG field workers, question them if in doubt, and demand to see their ID cards where needed.