The Acting Area Manager of the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCO) in the Upper East Region, Mr. Yahaya Fatawu, has called on residents to co-operate with his outfit in their ongoing revenue mobilization exercise.
The exercise, which happens to be the second phase, kicked off on the 15th of June, and is expected to end by the end of June.
It is however subject to extension, if they are not able to meet their target.
Speaking to GhanaWeb's Sarah Dubure in an exclusive interview, Mr. Yahaya noted that the exercise was necessitated by the fact that most of their customers were owing the power distributor.
"This collection is collection of revenue that is owed to us by our post-paid customers. They consume and at the end of the month, we send them the bill," he pointed.
"They have two weeks after, to pay the bill, but most times, they prioritise other needs than paying the electricity bills."
He explained that they came to the realization that the monies customers owed them were huge, and deemed it necessary to pursue them for collection because of the lack of voluntary compliance.
"We realized that our consumers are owing us a lot of money and if we don't go after them, they are not going to willingly come and pay," he stressed.
He entreated customers to cultivate the habit of paying their bills and not always wait for them to come around before they did the needful.
The NEDCO officer noted that the lack of payments drained their resources, adding that they could have used such time productively at their offices.
"We want them to inculcate the habit of paying their bills instead of allowing us to use our meagre resources to chase them to collect the monies.
"Now that we are doing this, it is like we have to leave other jobs, which is not the best. We should be fixing their problems to let the power flow, so that they can enjoy our services," he said.
He noted that a major challenge they faced in the the exercise was they not meeting some customers at home anytime they visited.
They had now made special arrangements for such customers to settle their bills.
He also spoke about the incidence of those engaging in illegal mining playing smart, anytime they get a hint about their coming.
He noted that apart from the revenue mobilization exercise, they would be doing monitoring as well.
He revealed that they would be moving from house to house, looking out for customers who engaged in illegal connections.
"Some of them are using meters and they happen not to be on our billing system, so we are not even aware they exist.
"So apart from mobilizing the revenue, we are looking out for customers who are engaged in illegal connection and we are disconnecting them and surcharging them," he elaborated.
Mr. Fatawu pointed that they had about 300 culprits during the first phase of the exercise.
During the first phase, which was last month, the company retrieved 11 milliom cedis from their customers.
It is their hope that by the end of the second phase, the will raise at least half of what was raised in the first phase or more.
NEDCO is the power distributor for the northern regions of Ghana