50 military personnel have been deployed to beef up security at Krobo as staff of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) replace all postpaid meters with prepaid meters.

The installation of prepaid meters comes after years of an impasse between Krobo residents and ECG which escalated into devastating attacks.

The said violent clash ensued when residents allegedly blocked the town road to prevent ECG officers from switching off the main transformer that supplied power to the town.

The disconnection exercise had been occasioned by unpaid electricity bills that had accrued from 2014.

The incident claimed the life of one of the protesters, while several others sustained various degrees of injuries.

Five police officers also sustained injuries.

After the clash, the ECG office has since been shut down.

But to reduce commercial losses through power theft in the area, ECG has sought the assistance of the security service in its exercise.

Director of Customer Service, Anokye Abebreseh is optimistic that the installation of prepaid meters will ensure the effective collection of revenue.

He therefore urged all residents to cooperate with the ECG staff.

“Just last week we met, a tripartite kind of a committee comprising of Electricity company, National Security and United Krobo Foundation. We met and the agreement is that ECG going to install prepaid meters starting from tomorrow for which all of us have agreed. So, come tomorrow (Tuesday) we are going to deploy our men to the field to start the installation of prepayment meters. We have done a lot of stakeholder engagements so at least for now calm is prevailing so come tomorrow 14th of June we are going to start deployment of prepayment meters,” he saud.

Mr Anokye Abebreseh also mentioned that debts owed by customers in Krobo land from 2018 to 2021 will not be put on the prepaid but a suitable approach will be used to determine how payment will be done.

“Normally the practice is that when you put prepayment meter there you put the debt on the post-paid meter on the prepaid meter so that we will recover whatever debt but in this case we said from 2018 to date we are not going to put it there, and that we will meet customers individually and determine how they should pay the debt.”

Source: The Independent Ghana