Seven communities in Central Tongu get power
Residents of seven communities in the Mafi-Zongo Electoral Area in the Central Tongu District are in a jubilant mood because electricity has been extended to the area.
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The communities were registered to benefit from the Self-Help Electrification Project (SHEP) of the Ministry of Power but were left unserviced for six years.
Though the residents had paid the mandatory 58Gp required of all qualified beneficiaries at the time, meters were not released for the contractor to connect them to the grid.
The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), over the weekend, extended power to the communities by installing meters for the affected residents, a development that brought excitement to them.
Beneficiaries
In all, about 200 customers benefited from the ECG’s intervention in the communities.
The communities include Mafi-Agbadzikope, Mafi-Zongo, Mafi-Seva, Mafi Amerika, Mafi Adiekpe, Mafi Manase and Mafi Wudzrolo-Ahloevi.
Speaking after the installation, the Assembly Member for the Mafi Zongo Electoral Area, Mr Julius Karl D. Fieve, expressed gratitude to the ECG for addressing their problem with electricity over the past years.
“Since 2010, even though transformers and high tension poles were erected in our communities, majority of us remained in darkness. We sent several reminders through the ECG to the ministry concerning our plight but they all fell on deaf ears,” he said.
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Importance to communities
He said residents of the Mafi Zongo Electoral Area could now freely move about in the evenings without fear; pupils could study in the evenings when they returned home from school and there were already positive signs that the presence of electricity was opening up the area to more economic opportunities.
The Volta Regional Manager of the ECG, Ing. Joseph Forson, explained that the ECG could not allow the massive investment sunk by the ministry in the project to go to waste, just because residents of the Mafi Zongo Electoral Area were still anticipating ‘free’ meters from the ministry.
“After engaging the assembly member and the leadership of the affected communities, we agreed to connect the residents to the grid under our special ‘Post SHEP’ facility,” he said.
Subsidy
He said instead of the standard GH¢400 each resident would have paid, the ECG discounted the new service cost and each resident paid only GH¢ 60 – VAT Inclusive.