The Kejetia Market in Kumasi has been plunged into darkness due to over Gh¢2 million debt owed to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
This development has sparked confusion among the traders and the management of the market with some of the traders calling for a probe, insisting that they had been consistently paying their bills.
According to the ECG, the disconnection resulted from the facility management’s failure to honour a scheduled debt repayment plan.
Speaking to the Ghanaian Times here, the Ashanti West Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the power company, Benjamin Obeng Antwi, indicated that as at April 22, this year, the market owed the ECG, GH¢7, 175, 145.44.
The market, he noted, paid GH¢5,300,000. 00 as at June 5, and that subsequently led to an arrangement to paythe remainder.
He mentioned that the agreement had it that by July 25, the debt shouldbe paid off, else the ECG reserves the right to terminate supply of electricity to the market without notice.
The PRO further noted that the market had not met its part of the agreement, leading to the current power disconnection.
Moreover, he said the ECG did not take delight in disconnecting the market,but the company needed the money for maintenance and other ongoing projects in the region.
There are about 7,000 stalls in the market relying on a bulk ECG metre, which had prompted several demands for separate metres.
Throwing more light, the PRO noted that in 2022 and 2023, efforts were made to install the separate metres, but along the line the market put a hold on that claiming the cost involved was too huge.
When contacted, the President of the Federation of Kumasi Traders, Nana Akwasi Prempeh, added his voice to the call for probe into the activities of the market management.
He mentioned that he had been part of the distribution of the electricity bills to the traders and called on the management to come out with a data on those who have not paid.
Nana Prempeh indicated that letters had been sent to the Local Government Ministry to go into the matter.
FROM KINGSLEY E.HOPE,KUMASI
