La, Teshie-Nungua residents to protest over high electricity bills

Some aggrieved residents of La, Teshie and Nungua all suburbs of Accra, are set to demonstrate against the ECG today [Tuesday], over what they describe as astronomical increases in electricity tariff.

According to the residents, the high cost of tariffs, is severely taking a toll on them.

Nicolas Nii Borlabi, who spoke on behalf of the aggrieved residents to Citi News, lamented how some of them are spending as much GHc 70 cedis a week and GHc 1,700 a month on electricity bills.

“How can we pay light bills, GHc 60 a week, how? Some people pay higher than GHc 70 a week. We cannot pay, it is too expensive. We cannot bear it any longer. For the past six months, how can we live in a community whereby people can pay light bill GHc1, 700 per month. We cannot pay.”

He thus served notice that the residents will be conveying their grief to government via the demonstration later today.

“We can no longer pay so we are pleading to the government to come and reduce the tariff for us and we are going to demonstrate to tell the government that, these high tariffs, we cannot pay any longer. We are tired and sick of these high bills. We cannot pay.”

A suburb like Teshie is no stranger to protests against the ECG.

In January, scores of residents in Teshie thronged the offices of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in the area, to express their anger, as according to them, the credits they were buying were literally vanishing after just a few days.

They further accused the ECG officials of manipulating the system to short-change them.

By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana