Moves by the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to improve revenue mobilisation is a step in the right direction.
MiDA received equipment for a modern Meter Management System (MMS) which is expected to be inaugurated in the last quarter of this year. The equipment, we learn, will boost ECG’s revenue collection by enabling customers connected to the system to buy pre-paid credit in real-time anywhere in the country, along with other state-of-the-art functions.
The equipment, comprising of 17 servers in 6 racks, 40 point-of-sale devices, UPSs, laptops and printers, among others, have been delivered to two sites – the ECG Project Office and ECG Legon District Office.
ECG and MiDA’s Consultants took part in the Factory Acceptance Tests, and have certified the System to be compliant with all the specifications.
Illegal connections have caused massive revenue loss to the ECG which has consistently pointed out this problem though it has not been able to tackle it effectively. Consumers, and staff of power utilities cum their accredited agents are identified as the major actors in electricity theft.
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) reports loosing close to a quarter of its revenues from power supplied due to power stealing. Power theft has adverse impact on power utilities operations, as it deprives them of raising the needed revenue that could be used to maintain the network to guarantee regular and increased supply of power.
The ripple effect of the revenue loss to the utilities is that, legitimate consumers will pay more for electricity in the form of higher tariffs, and government may be compelled to subsidize in some cases.
Electricity will continue to remain one of the key determinants of socio-economic transformation of any nation, playing a vital role within the residential, commercial, transportation, and industrial sectors of the economy.
It is for this reason that the procuring of the US$12million Meter Management System funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is very exciting since it will contribute significantly to improving ECG’s revenue mobilisation efforts.
