The head of the electricity section at the University of Cape Coast, ING. Joseph Wilberforce Ansah says every purchase of ECG prepaid credit requires a service charge.
According to him, service charges are deducted on monthly basis from customers who purchase credit from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
Service charge is a fee in addition to the basic cost of services that the ECG renders to its customers.
According to the ING. Wilberforce most customers are not aware of these charges and usually blame the ECG for the short time use of energy as per the amounts they purchase.
Giving some education on the Atlantic Wave, ING. Wilberforce explained that the service charge is a monthly circle fee to every customer.
“What it means is that your date becomes your monthly cycle. So, if I go to purchase on the 1st or on the 2nd with the prepaid card, immediately I get to the vendor’s station and I purchase whichever amount, it means the service charge is deducted. So, if you are purchasing GHC 20, and assuming the service charge was GHC 5, you have to get the understanding that the GHC 20 is not going to be the actual credit value you are getting in terms of kilowatt hour, it means in actual sense you are purchasing GHC 15, not GHC 20.”
ING Wilberforce, therefore, tasked ECG customers to stay abreast with the service charges on their receipts after purchasing credit by constantly checking their receipts.
“People should be careful when they purchase. People should look at the receipt they provide them with, to know how much credit they have on the system as against the idea that they purchased GHc 50 or GHc 100. Secondly, they should also look at the efficient system to procure to enable them to conserve their energy. Because once you purchase an efficient system, it means lesser energy will be used to achieve the same results as against a system that is not efficient. Once that is done, you lower your consumption.”
According to him, the service charge is in respect of maintenance, continuous receiving of electricity, reliability of the supply, and equipment handling, among other things.
He added that service charge helps to recover the extra costs of providing good and quality services to customers.
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Source: Enock Chanimbe/ATLFMNEWS
