Krobo clashes: Manya Kpongunor still in darkness over security reasons – PDS

Power Distribution Services (PDS) has said electricity supply hasn’t been restored in Manya Kpongunor, a community near Odumase Krobo in the Lower Manya Municipality due to weak security.

“The Manya Kpongunor area hasn’t got power restored for security reasons,” PSD’s PRO William Boateng told Morning Starr host Francis Abban on Monday.

“The people threatened some of our workers and that is why they have not been there yet to restore power.”

The clarification by PDS comes in the wake heightening fury in the community over the delay in restoring power to it—six days after PDS switched off transformers in the area and took away the fuses.

PDS had not restored power to the community having reportedly reconnected all other communities plunged into darkness on Wednesday, May 22 following deadly clashes between police and residents there after attacks on PDS staff.

Assembly Member for the area, Joseph Adeti told Starr News efforts to get management of  PDS to restore power to the community is not yielding result. He said PDS officials in the District said they were waiting for orders from above before they could restore power to the community.

Adeti said tensions are heightening in the community and the continuous power outage in the area could spark another violence in the already volatile environment.

“I have even run away from the house due to the anger of the youth. I have been going up and down to the PDS office but according to the manager he is waiting for instruction from above before he can restore power to the community,” he said.

Genesis of the outages

Angry youth of Kpongunor organized a spontaneous protest to petition the Municipal Chief Executive for the Area, Kwaku Simon Tetteh, on their concerns on overbilling by PDS and its ongoing mass disconnection exercise.

They had earlier in the morning of the fateful day,  Wednesday, May 22  mounted roadblocks and pelted the PDS staff with stones and sticks at Yohe, a community near Odumase Krobo when they went to the community to discontinue its mass disconnection exercise.

The irate youth smashed a PDS Nissan Pick Up with Registration Number GV 2318-1 and it took the intervention of armed police personnel to rescue the PDS staff.

The PDS staff decided to switch off the transformers cutting off the power supply to many communities.

No debt waiver

Meanwhile, PDS has denied reports it has waived off about GH¢100 millions of billing charges from residents of Krobo and its environs.

The reports said the move was to enable the agitating residents to pay off their accumulated bills which have become a matter of contention between them and the power distributor.

However, in a statement, PDS said there has been no waiver of bills instead the new amount is the actual reflection of the actual electricity consumption of the people.

Source: Starrfm.com.gh