The explanation offered by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) regarding the sudden rapid depletion of prepaid electricity credit has been rejected by a ranking Member of Parliament, intensifying the public debate over the country’s new smart metering system.
Collins Adomako-Mensah, the Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament’s Energy Committee, has challenged the state power distributor’s assertion that the phenomenon is simply a result of newly installed smart meters accurately recording consumption.
The controversy has sparked widespread frustration among consumers across the country, who report that their prepaid credits are vanishing much faster than usual, even when usage appears minimal. ECG officials, including the General Manager for External Communications, Dr. Charles Nii Ayiku Ayiku, had previously suggested that older meters were under-reporting usage and that the new technology is merely correcting the record by capturing actual power consumption.
However, appearing on Citi FM on Thursday, February 26, Mr. Adomako-Mensah described the ECG’s stance as implausible, pointing to a critical flaw in the timeline.
“These smart meters have been with us for some time, and the installation exercise is ongoing. The rapid erosion of prepaid credit only began about three to four weeks ago,” the MP stated. “If the issue were purely a matter of smart meters recording accurate usage, we would have seen this problem much earlier.”
He noted that nearly one million smart meters had already been installed by the end of 2024, yet the wave of complaints did not surface until recently. This, he argued, suggests the root cause may be something other than accurate meter readings.
Mr. Adomako-Mensah’s remarks come amid growing pressure on the sector regulator. The Ministry of Energy and Green Transition has already directed ECG to conduct a full-scale investigation into the complaints in an effort to restore public confidence in the billing system.
The MP reiterated that the utility’s current explanation does not align with the facts, urging a more transparent and thorough inquiry to determine the actual cause of the rapid credit depletion.
