The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has revealed that almost 1.7 million consumers of electricity will for the rest of the year benefit from the government’s latest COVID-19 relief measures.
All the consumers set to enjoy this relief are those who use up to 50 kilowatts of power per hour or about GH¢20 worth of power in a month.
Of this number, identified as lifeline consumers, about 1.1 million are served by the ECG, with nearly 600,000 also served by the Northermn electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo).
The Managing Director of ECG, Mr Kwame Agyeman-Budu, in an interview with the Daily Graphic said that,
“The figures were arrived at from the data the company gathered from the implementation of the initial relief that was carried out from April to June this year as part of the government’s intervention to mitigate the impact of COVID-19.”
He also announced that the latest relief package to benefit the vulnerable would be rolled out from this month to January next year and indicated that the number of people who would benefit was likely to be more, given that most customers had families or dependents.
He then explained that, the company decided to start the implementation in August as most people had already bought power for the last month at the time the latest intervention was announced though it should have started last month.
He further went on to say that, the company observed a rise in the number of lifeline consumers during the implementation of the first relief programme and it was foreseeing a fluctuation of the numbers during the rollout of this month.
“Analysis of the information from the first programme showed that many consumers who were on the borderline have dropped into the lifeline category for several reasons, including the desire to also fully enjoy the relief as well as save money for other things.
“We envisage that the trend is likely to continue as more people would want to continue enjoying for the next six months. That will be good in a way as it also encourages power conservation”
Mr Agyeman-Budu also gave the assurance that there will be more efficiency in the implementation because the experience of the initial programme would serve as a guide and also the number this time around is fewer.
“The experiences of the initial programme will help us greatly to better execute this latest relief; besides the numbers are fewer as we will be dealing with a number within a specific category.
“The relief would be on a month-by-month basis, so depending on the usage of power, customers could enjoy this month’s benefit next month,…the system is now configured to deal with these movements and no one will be short-changed.”
President’s Address
The President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his 14th address to the nation on government’s interventions of COVID-19, announced the extension of the water and electricity relief for three and six more months.
Unlike the first intervention which saw the lifeline consumers enjoy free electricity while all others paid 50 per cent of the power they consumed, this latest relief is targeted at only the lifeline consumers.
