Payment Behaviour of Electricity Consumers: Evidence from the Greater Accra Region of Ghana

Electricity companies are typically businesses with significant credit sales. However, timely payment of bills on the part of customers, which is supposedly the most reliable source of cash flows for these utilities, has been generally very poor especially in the context of much of the developing world. The aim of the study is to identify a set of organizational and behavioural factors that influences the bill payment behaviour of customers of the Electricity Company of Ghana. Based on a survey of households in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, our empirical analysis suggests that electricity utilities must work towards reducing the transaction time of customers at the bill collection centres and improving upon the quality of service and customer satisfaction in order to curtail customer bill payment period. These findings are robust to the influence of potentially extreme data points in our sample. We provide detailed discussion and policy implications of our findings.