….Kumasi Consumers Confess!!
Kwame Atuah Patrick writes…
In my last article about this subject I explained why the need for every household to have their own separate meters to allow consumers to really appreciate the benefit of these new meters.
Our Research team was out once again to conduct a survey on the impact of these meters on consumers so far.
The methodology used was a full multi-stage sampling and opinion poll, with all the methodologies applied. For example, day’s code, sampling gap of 1/3 in the high density area and 1/5 in the low density area, household selection grid, kish grid, as well as random route walk were all included.
The sampling areas were, Santasi, Adum, Asafo, Bantama, Tafo, Kejetia, Ayigya, and Kwadaso for the first phase.
With the exception of Kejetia, and Adum that our team decided to adopt the “opinion poll” strategy as a means of collecting our data, all the rest were full multi-stage sampling.
Our sampling size was 1000 respondents which were selected by the help of the methodologies named above.
Some of our findings are;
By the responses from our respondents, about 70.1% accepted that they have seen some decrease in their electricity tariffs over some time now.
This was detected by the answer of (“YES”) to our question number 5(a) in our questionnaire used for the data collection. Which reads:
Have you noticed any decrease in your electricity tariffs over a month now?
Furthermore, 86.9% of the respondents we spoke to also preferred these new meters to that of the old ones.
This was also detected by their responses in our “opened ended” question in the page 2 of our questionnaire, which reads:
If you compare the old ECG meters to that of the new ones, which one will you prefer and why?
Some of their responses are:
You, the consumer determines how much you want to spend on electricity with this new meters.
Consumers will no longer be in the debt books of the ECG with these new meters.
Just to mention few.
Moreover about 67.5% also questioned the difficulties involved in acquiring a new meter and the cost involved it as well.
This also was detected by the answer of (“6-10”) to a spontaneous question number 6(c) in our questionnaire for the survey, which reads.
How will you rate the processes involved in acquiring a new meter? use the range below to answer, (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10) where one (1) means very easy and ten (10) means very difficult?
Again, 90.7% of all the commercial users of electricity we interviewed also disagree with the extra charges on commercial meters.
This was also detected by their answers given in our “open ended” question 7(b) in our questionnaire, which reads:
How do you see the extra charges imposed on commercial meters by the ECG?
Some of their responses are:
By the introduction of these new prepaid meters, consumers pays for what they have consume, therefore the motive behind extra charges that it will help minimize power wastage by commercial users does not implied.
Since every business person will want to reduce the cost of production in other to make more profit.
Others also said it is a cheat, since they are already paying taxes as business men so why should they (ECG) charge them an extra charges on commercial meters. Especially when there is no difference between the power use for residential and that of business purposes.
To be continued!!!
KAP
