By Michael Kofi Kenetey
The Lower Manya Krobo Municipal Assembly in the Eastern Region has started installing meters to connect nine communities in the Municipality to the national grid as part of the Self-Help Electrification Project. This is to help solve the electricity challenge that these communities have been confronted with for the past years of being in darkness.
The beneficiary communities for the meter installation exercise include Aplah, Abobeng, Obelemanya, Wawase, Odorkorm, Ayermesu Kpeti, Ayermesu Akro, among others. In an interview with the media, the Lower Manya Krobo Municipal Chief Executive who doubles as the NPP Parliamentary Candidate, Simon Kweku Tetteh hinted that electricity is crucial to national growth and connecting the communities to the national grid is critical to increasing business productivity.
“The people have been in darkness for a long time, and when I took over as MCE, I promised the people that I would extend electricity to the areas, and when Mr. Boakye Agyarko was appointed Energy Minister, I went to have talks with him, and we were able to extend electricity to the area, and we are now at the final stage of providing them with postpaid meters,” he said.
Mr Kweku Tetteh added that the provision of the electricity meters to the communities forms part of the Self-help Electrification Project meters from the Ministry of Energy to help connect the area to the national grid.
“The power, cables, poles, and transformers have been fixed; all we’re doing now is metering to brighten up the communities and bring the power to their doorstep so that business activities can thrive.” he noted.
The CEO of Gaddason Engineering Limited, the meter installation company, John Gaddasu, noted that the project began in 2017. He stated that they are installing about 300 meters for free, which is an initiative from the government under the Ministry of Energy. He stressed that they chose post-paid meters since it will be difficult for the residents to obtain prepaid credit in the remote areas, but the Electricity Company of Ghana, ECG officials will rather go to the area for their bills.
An opinion leader at Obelemanya, Henry Angmortey, who happens to be the 2023 Lower Manya Krobo Best Farmer hinted that residents in the community who are mainly fishermen and farmers in the absence of electricity have to use fuel to power their generator to operate their frozen fish business, which is expensive as compared to electricity. “We having access to electricity in their community will increase productivity and boost their businesses in the area,” he added.
“We are grateful for this opportunity, as it will help us record our bills and grow our firm,” he said.
Another resident of the area, Godwin Ndevo noted that the absence of electricity in the area really affected the academic performance of their children and now that they have access to electricity will help improve their academic performance.
