Ghanaians to start enjoying COVID-19 electricity reliefs in May – Amewu
The Minister for Energy, John Peter Amewu says Ghanaians will start enjoying the full electricity reliefs announced by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, from May 2020 instead of April.
In his sixth national address to the nation on the novel coronavirus on Thursday, April 9, 2020, President Akufo-Addo said that government will fully cover the bills of low-income consumers of electricity and a 50 percent reduction in the cost of same for consumers in other categories in the country for April, May and June 2020.
However, at a press briefing organised by the Ministry of Information today, Thursday, April 14, 2020, the Energy Minister indicated that since the announcement was made on the 9th of April, some prepaid users had already bought electricity credits hence the need to shift the commencement date to May.
Amewu thus indicated that in order not to deprive them of the president’s initiative, the implementation of the directive will be pushed forward by a month, covering May, June and July.
“The directive by his Excellency, if you recollect was announced on the 9th of April and the directive was to be implemented. So the implementation process began, but if you recollect, it’s for 3 months; April, May and June. By the 9th of April, some people had already purchased, especially the prepaid customers had already purchased their prepaid and some people had already bought their postpaid so the April benefits will be derived in May, and May benefits in June and June benefits will be in July. And so that is how it is going to be. So if you have already bought credit in April you won’t see it reflecting but if we move to May it will reflect in May.”
The Minister also indicated that customers who were disconnected before the April 9 announcement due to failure to pay previous debt would be excluded from the intervention.
“And again let’s not forget that the baseline for the directive from his Excellency was to use the March bill, so we are going to use the March bill to identify the lifeline customers. So if by the 9th of April you were disconnected and you weren’t enjoying the national grid by the time the president made the announcement…But if for some reason you were disconnected because you did not pay some bills and today you make an attempt to pay that bill then, of course, you will be entitled to the benefit–the benefit is for all Ghanaians,” Mr. Amewu added.
Source: Citinewsroom
