Energy Minister Vows To Terminate PDS Contract Over Krobo Odumase Billing Anger

Minister of Energy John Peter Amewu has pulled a whip at PDS to deal with the irregularities in its billing system for angry residence of the Krobo Odumasi.

The people clashed with officials from Power Distributing Services (PDS) accompanied by the police to disconnect them from the national grid for refusing to pay their utility bills for ages.

The clashes lead to the death of a 14 year old boy and several others sustained injuries.A

The sector minister who visited the deceased family, condemned the actions of the power distribution company.

Peter Amewu backed the call for a realistic metering system but urged the angry youth to endeavour to pay for the power they use in order not to incur more debt on the power company.

According to him, the action of PDS doesn’t make sense and for that matter would have agitated same if he was in the their shoes.

“If you are billing somebody on the wrong meter, of course you have every justification to demand for the right thing to be done. I support the people of Krobo land for demanding their right. I support you 100 percent because I will tolerate such a nonsense. I have seen it, the bill is not working and you give me a money to pay, I have every right to query the authorities that are responsible,” he fumed.

The Energy Minister indicate that he will ensure that the circumstances that led to the death of the 14 year old boy is investigated.

He gave a strong indication that government will not hesitate to terminate the contract of PDS if the company fails to provide value for the country in the power distribution sector as expected of them.

“I want to assure the family that we are going to investigate this to the latter. I have already stated that we brought in PDS to come and change the system. If they are not able to change the system, I have said it on several platforms and I am maintaining it here again, we will as well as ask them to leave. We are not bringing them into this system to continue to add to the existing malpractices and nonsense that we have. That is not the reason why we brought them,” he noted.

According to information gathered by ModernGhana, the power distribution company has revised the bill amount which was claimed to be owed by the people from close 200 million Cedis to about 89 million Cedis after the Public Utility and Regulatory Commission (PURC) stepped in.