The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has attributed recent power crisis to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) system challenges.
Although he did not confirm whether or not the system had been hacked, Managing Director of ECG, Mr Samuel DubikMahama, said the company had so far been able to restore operations of District Offices and third-party vendors within its operational areas to serve some districts in the Ashanti Region.
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, he noted that work on ECG App would be completed by close of yesterday to enable customers purchase prepaid power through the platform.
He admitted the fault of the ECG in the current challenge and apologised to the customers for damages suffered as a result of the power outages.
“We at ECG admit that we are at fault for our inability to provide our cherished customers with power within the past few days. It is our mandate to serve you with power but we could not. For this reason, we apologise unreservedly,” Mr Mahama stated.
Currently, he said all vending points or stations were up and running except some few in the Ashanti region, and urged customers to visit the ones nearby to purchase their power.
He appealed to customers who have incurred damages to file their complaints with the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), adding that “we will look at compensation case by case”.
The ECG, he noted, had also suffered some losses as a result of the challenge, saying that it would be able to quantify its total losses after the system restoration exercise was completed.
Mr Mahama advised customers who engaged in any form of illegal connection during the period of outages to reverse the process to avoid suffering penalties or sanctions when the meter audit taskforce resumes its work.
He indicated that the company would soon roll out a programme to reduce the number of meter types, which currently stood at seven.
“It is technology so time and again new ones are developed to replace the old ones.
What we intend doing is to get to the point where we all use one type of meter. We will soon announce when and where the exercise will start,” he added.
The ECG, last week, announced that it was experiencing some technical challenges in relation to the metering system nationwide, which resulted in the inability of some customers to top-up electricity power on prepaid meters since September 25.
The technical challenge affected customers in various operational areas of the ECG includingVolta, Kumasi, Accra, Takoradi, Tema, Cape Coast, Kasoa, Winneba, Swedru, Koforidua, Nkawkaw, and Tafo.
Some customers were seen queuing at some offices of the ECG in an attempt to purchase power for their homes which were without power for days.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS
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