Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) director-general Keo Rattanak said on Thursday that during the first seven months of this year, the company had received 237 complaints on Facebook regarding electricity meters.
Rattanak was speaking on Thursday morning at a press conference to address concerns about the meters.
Rattanak, who is also the delegate minister attached to the Prime Minister, said that from January to July, electricity consumers had filed 237 complaints on Facebook, many containing insulting language, claiming their electricity meters were moving too fast.
“Our experience in early 2019 was like a storm as there were protests and insults on Facebook. Sometimes our citizens used rude and grotesque words such as sucking citizens’ blood.
“The Royal Government has no intention of doing such a thing and any individual doing so will be punished before the law. So there is no benefit in exploiting citizens. We had appealed to our citizens wondering about their electricity meters or other matters to phone the hotline number or post on EdC’s Facebook page.
“A large number of citizens wrote insulting posts on Facebook, but we still send our agents to resolve the problems.
“We encourage consumers with old appliances to replace them, because when equipment is old, its effectiveness decreases and it uses more electricity,” he said.
He said EdC guarantees that no electricity meters are tampered with and if there were any issues the company would resolve them free of charge.
At the same event, Rattanak reaffirmed the government’s intention to develop hydropower to increase the supply of electricity, but said opposition groups were protesting.
“[The government is trying to do many things] such as develop the electricity supply in forested areas, clear landmines and develop and defend the nation.
“The people have seen it, the government tries so hard. But there are people from opposition groups trying to block the development of a hydropower station.
“In Vietnam, they have developed many hydropower stations, but [in Cambodia] the government built one or two hydropower stations and attracted a lot of criticism,” he said.
Rattanak also said Cambodia will be able to obtain 15 per cent of its power from solar sources next year.
He said solar power in Laos costs more than eight cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), in Vietnam the price is 9.35 cents, and in Thailand it stands at more than 10 cents per kWh.
In contrast, Rattanak said, the price of solar power in Cambodia is only 7.6 cents per kWh.
