Court fines two men for stealing power
Two men, a drinking spot operator and a corn miller, have been fined by the Koforidua Circuit Court in the Eastern Region for bypassing power supply from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) prepaid meters to their commercial operations.
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The accused persons, Eric Darko, the drinking spot operator, and Daniel Mensah, alias Teacher, the corn mill operator, have pleaded not guilty in separate trials to two counts of stealing and intentionally interfering with power supply.
The court, presided over by Mrs Cynthia Wiredu, fined each of them 300 penalty units which translated into GH¢3,600. A penalty unit is GH¢12.
Facts
Prosecuting, an official of the Prosecution Unit of the ECG, Mr Johnny Adeku, said Darko was arrested by a team from the ECG Loss Control Unit in Koforidua during their usual monitoring duties.
He said the team which visited the drinking spot detected that power supply to the spot was not running through the meter fixed at the place.
Consequently, Darko was arrested and handed over to the police.
Mr Adeku said Darko, in his statement to the police, claimed he had bought the wooden structure and used it as a spot, in 2014 and later contracted an electrician, who he could only identify as Mr Quaye, to get him connected to power supply, as well as fix a meter for him.
Darko, according to Mr Adeku, claimed the electrician might have bypassed the ECG meter without his knowledge but could not lead the police to arrest the electrician.
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He said Darko was later billed GH¢5,247.60 for the power consumed.
Corn miller
In the case of Mensah, Mr Adeku said the ECG officials, on their usual field visits, detected that the meter at his corn mill shop at Srodae, in Koforidua, had been bypassed.
The matter, he said, was later reported to the ECG Investigations Unit, leading to the arrest of Mensah who blamed one of his employees for the illegal connection.
Mr Adeku said Mensah also claimed in his statement to the police that there was a problem with one of his corn mills which was fixed by one of his employees, identified only as Mawuli, and he suspected that Mawuli might have bypassed the ECG meter in the course of repairing the machine.
He was levied a bill of GH¢ 9,903.11 for consuming power between November, 2014 and July 2015.
Writer’s email:emelia.ennin@graphic.com.gh