Ghana: Consumers Causing Financial Loss to the State? OMG!

Ghanaian consumers happen to be at the receiving end of loose talk often ejaculated by the powerful and important in this country. And when did Ghanaian consumers begin to cause financial loss to the state?

Aesop's Fable- THE BOYS [Mr President, VRA-ECG-GRIDCO] AND THE FROGS: Some boys, playing near a pond, saw a number of Frogs in the water and began to pelt them with stones. They killed several of them, when one of the Frogs, lifting his head out of the water, cried out: “Pray stop, my boys [Mr President, VRA-ECG-GRIDCO]: what is sport to you, is death to us.”

Ghanaian consumers seem to be in the way of these important people and wherever they got their advanced degrees they must have played truant to the strategy class or unless they did not take any business or political-military-related course.

His Excellency and his cohorts at VRA-ECG-GRIDCO would want Ghanaians to be strategic so that government, its agencies and related VRA-ECG-GRIDCO can become efficient in their operations. Since when did consumers begin to craft strategy for government, MDAs and its related businesses?

Strategy 101, Mr President: Consumers are always at the receiving end of both bogus and effective strategies; they do not craft strategy for government and business. This is the reason why even political parties have got strategy in the guise of manifestos! The crafting of strategy represents a managerial commitment to pursue a particular set of actions in growing the business, attracting and pleasing consumers, competing successfully, conducting operations, and improving and achieving the targeted levels of the company's financial and market performance. So whither VRA-ECG-GRIDCO?

If the VRA-ECG-GRIDCO triangle only boasts of strategy-deficient CEOs, please visit them with your toolbox, tool up these organizations and leave us alone. Absence of competition is not forcing these utility providers to think. It is becoming a taboo akin to Vagina Monologues to call the POWER TRIAD inefficient. Or VRA-ECG-GRIDCO don't know that they don't know?

A Persian quote often attributed to Donald Rumsfeld, Former United States Secretary of Defense, for popularizing it, the concept of Unknown Unknowns is also similar to the Relevance paradox where decision makers think they have obtained all relevant information, but are unaware of the existence of certain relevant information, because its relevance is not apparent until they have that information. The Persian-Tajik thirteenth-century poet Ibn Yamin Sabzevar born 1286 in Faryumad near Sabzevar and died 1368, says there are four types of men:

1. One who knows and knows that he knows... His horse of wisdom will reach the skies.
2. One who knows, but doesn't know that he knows... He is fast asleep, so you should wake him up!
3. One who doesn't know, but knows that he doesn't know... His limping mule will eventually get him home.
4. One who doesn't know and doesn't know that he doesn't know... He will be eternally lost in his hopeless oblivion!

Ghanaian consumers can resolve to turn their homes into lighthouses and that is no business of government! Bills are sent to consumers and not rerouted from a haunted presidential castle or as poste-restante awaiting presidential assent.

While the world is moving into smart meters, even pre-paid meters installation and servicing have become as challenging to ECG what good governance is to Ghana. Expected benefits of the use of smart meters include billing based on real use and productivity gain by VRA-ECG-GRIDCO – which will definitely not be passed on to Ghanaian consumers for causing financial gain to the state.

“Smart meters are a key part of giving us all more control over how we use energy at home and at work, helping us to cut out waste and save money” [Chris Huhne, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change]

It is not the duty of the consumer movement in Ghana to educate the VRA-ECG-GRIDCO POWER TRIAD!