BY : DARI KWABENA MATHEW (+233555395925)
Electricity supply has been restored at the new Kejetia market in Kumasi in the Ashanti region after it was disconnected following the non-payment of bills.
The facility owes over 2 million Ghana cedis within a period of six months.
The market was plunged into darkness on Wednesday October 13 due to indebtedness to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
Business activities were halted following the development.
An intervention from the Chief Executive of Kumasi has led to the restoration of power to the trading facility.
But leadership of the traders are not ready to pay the electricity bills until an agreement is signed to provide each of the over 7,000 shops with a meter.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive of Kumasi Sam Pyne has assured the traders of facilitating the provision of meters for each of the traders.
The General Manager of the Public Affairs Directorate of the ECG, Erasmus Kyere Baidu Alfred Ocansey on 3FM’s Sunrise on Thursday that “The market owes us GHS2.1m for a period of six months.”
Mr. Baidu further explained that “being alive without electricity is uncomfortable but we [ECG] deal with the company and not individuals”.
“We have declared the last quarter of the year as ‘operation collect and correct’ our bills so it is not only the Kejetia Market that we have targeted”.
He added that “yesterday we were at Obuasi, Abuwakwa, and other places. It’s a whole exercise and we are not relenting. The target is to make sure we collect all our bills and Kejetia is just one of them”.
Asked whether the individual traders can apply for their individual metre, Mr. Baidu explained that because the market is being managed by a company, individuals have no right to bye-pass the company and apply for their personal metres.
“Management can come to the ECG for a new arrangement for a new individual metres but they are yet to come. The traders cannot bypass their management to come directly to us for an individual metres”.
The Manager said currently, “we have given them temporary electricity and given them up to the end of the week to resolve the issue and get back to us”.
