So the past few days my power had finished and I’ve been meaning to go to the VRA(Volta River Authority) to load up. For those who don’t know, the VRA is basically light the company in charge of electricity and power stuff here.
I learnt something very new today over there and it kinda pissed me off I had to learn it today. I called up a delivery service to take me to town to handle some extra stuff and getting the power was the last thing on the list.
What I’m about to say might not make a lot of sense to you if you’re not Ghana or Africa. Okay so here goes…
You know how when you buy power (credit), you get some bonus as “reserve”? If you said yes or nodded your head in agreement, welcome to the group that learnt it actually doesn’t work that way today.
The VRA attendant told me the “reserve” credit we use after we run out of credit is not actually bonus that was given to you, but is a debt or loan credit you took. So something like taking a mobile money loan like Qwik Loan.
It was a long conversation trying to explain to an agent that’s not how it works. Yeah, me who doesn’t work there, trying to tell the professional how their job works. Lol fucking right.
I was honestly embarrassed I didn’t know about this all this time. I’ve gone to the VRA more times than I can count to buy prepaid and if I had just taken the time to properly look at the numbers on the prepaid receipt, I would understand this logistics.
This new lesson is just one part of the post. Why she was telling me about this was because apparently I had some "debt" on my card (which I didn’t know was debt until right about today) and I swore everything I didn’t. Eventually after she was done explaining everything, it turns out I need to pay a GHC28 service fee before I could even buy prepaid. Funny thing is that I brought GHC30 to buy my prepaid. So in essence, I only had enough money to pay off my service fee and go back home with no credit. Seeing as that was already my last coin, I told her I’d come back another time and left with my GHC30.
According to her, after paying this “service fee”, I would need to buy credit worth not less than 50cedis to be good, because the debt on my loan would equal close to 20cedis. Meaning I get only 30cedis credit myself.
Most of this stuff was pretty confusing to me, but I managed to make meaning out of some bits of it. Not sure whether everyone else knew this and I was the only moron, but my delivery guy said he knew about it when I asked it and it made me feel more stupid than I already seemed.
So yeah, this was the lesson for today. Did you already know these things or are you just finding out now too?
All images here are mine
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I’m actually surprised you were never aware of this detail. When I was in university, I used to buy prepaid for the hostel. I would make sure I top up before the current one finishes since I didn’t want to borrow from them. I want to believe everything you borrow in this country surely comes with an interest.
Hmmm 🤔, the issue of VRA and power supply in Ghana has been something causing a lot of problem. This isn't only those who use the prepaid card but also the Digital one too. Sometimes when they make mistakes and you go there to resolve, they wouldn't want to address it.
Yhp. Ghana is a very interesting country.
So all this while you didn’t know the reserve was a loan.😅
Those people are cheats. The last time they asked me to pay 24gh as service charge for buying light the second time in the month.
Just last weekend I was talking to someone about it and they said it wasn’t true and that they were just trying to cheat me.
Yeah like why do I have to pay extra to buy power for the second time in a month. The VRA agent was telling me the same thing too. Something about “they were expecting me to use the power through out the month, but since I finished it before the month ended, I had to pay extra or something. It’s all just confusing, seriously.
Oh😂😂😂
When I just started reading, I knew where this was going😂😂😂
I don’t know about this service fee thing though.
Why would they take service fee and still take the loan again?
Lol you need to ask about it the next time you go to buy power. Maybe your agent will give you a better explanation than mine did. Good to know what’s up before you have to find out when you’re in a shitty spot like me. Lol
I'm looking at this as if it would be all Chinese. Good thing we don't have this system here, but I understand why they have it still over there.
I am finding out now that power is on credit 😳😳😳
Haha I can understand why it might sound gibberish to you.
I’ve read a couple things about systems else where and couldn’t quite grasp what was been narrated.
But yeah…they give us power on credit here. Basically when you run out of power on your card, you can just slot it back in and you’ll automatically be given power on credit to last you maybe a couple of days until you can go to the office to buy some. The thing is just that, many people considered (myself included) that as a sort of a bonus.
In most of the countries you have power and pay the bill later. If you don't pay, you have your power cut off. Simple as that.
It used to be like that here. But now we have two options: pay for the power before you get it (this case is called a prepaid subscription) or they give you power for a month and your usage at the end of the month is calculated and you pay monthly(this case is called postpaid subscription). People had this belief that the postpaid subscription charges were being inflated by the VRA themselves, so most people here use prepaid now.
Interesting. Or strange? 😳 Dunno but good to know.
Wait. You don’t have the option of paying upfront for power over there?
I don't think so, I've never heard of such thing. You have different packages here, different options, based on how much you think you're consuming, so the price varies too.
That system you have was used here between the two world wars and it's possible the prepaid system is still on in the UK, but other than that, I doubt it. Wherever I've been in Europe, have not seen it.
Funny fact is that I'm learning about this too. Why don't they explain this stuffs directly in the beginning? That's the thing with prepaid meteres.
Haha glad to hear I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know. Prepaid meters seem to come with a bunch of complications.
Now it's either one uses them or they face the electricity turmoil.. tch
This thing can be confusing you don't even know your left from right 😂
Right? I felt very stupid after this new discovery cos I’m mostly that person that knows the small details people ignore.
There’s a lot of things that we don’t learn or understand about being an adult, it’s wild man. I learn stuff all the time and think damn, what the hell? That’s the thing, our parents likely didn’t know a bunch of this stuff either and we all learn as we go! Lol