ECG retrieves GH¢8.7m from power ‘thieves’

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has retrieved GH¢8.7 million from individuals and organisations that engaged in illegal power connection between January and March this year.

Between August and December in 2015, GH¢30 million was retrieved from individuals and organisations for illegal power connection.

The money was retrieved after the culprits had been caught by ECG officials who embarked on an exercise to clamp down on illegal power connection in different parts of the country.

Police barracks in illegal connection

The Director of Customer Service of the ECG, Mr Kobina Ato-Forson, made this known when officials of the company embarked on a similar exercise to clamp down on illegal connection in the Tema North Region of the company.

During the exercise, the engineers detected a number of illegal connections in some houses in the area, including the Community Eight Police barracks.

There were situations where the culprits had done their own connections using different wires to prevent power from passing through their meters.

While all the houses that were connected illegally to the grid were disconnected, the police barracks was spared for further investigations. 

The culprits were issued with summons letters to visit ECG offices for the assessment of the units that they had stolen, after which they would be billed and then made to appear before the Energy Court for prosecution.

Commercial losses

According to Mr Ato-Forson, the operation had become necessary for the company to avoid commercial losses of power which translated into huge loss of revenue.

He said so far, about 10 out of the 80 districts of the ECG had been visited since the start of the operation last year, adding that the exercise would be extended to 23 districts by the end of this year.

"We will investigate barracks issue"

He explained that police barracks were not supposed to use prepaid meters but rather credit meters for the Accountant-General’s Department to pay the bills.

However, in the case of the Community Eight Police barracks, Mr Ato-Forson said, the ECG was going to investigate why the police were using prepaid meters and whether or not illegal connection was done before the police relocated to the place.