The supects
Four persons have been arrested by the police for tampering with a metre belonging to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) prior to its installation for a customer.
Wisdom Sewlonu, Ernest Afa Tsaw, Ali Yakubu, all Ghanaian and Runlian Shan, a Chinese national, have all confessed to the crime and are assisting the police with investigation.
The residential metre was installed at the premises of Runlian Manufacturing Company Limited at Oblogo near Weija in Accra, where it was being used for commercial purposes of manufacturing of plastic bowls.
The four were arrested following intelligence gathered by the Quality Assurance team of the ECG.
Information available indicated that Wisdom Sewlonu, a foreman to Nyame Aye Bi, a Farming Out Contractor of ECG handed the metre to Ernest Afa Tsaw who is an agent and he in turn tampered with the metre before installing it at the premises of Runlian Manufacturing Company Limited at a cost of GH¢1,200.
The Director in Charge of Investigations, Prosecution and Security at ECG, Paul Asibi Abriga who disclosed these during a press briefing indicated that the activities of the suspects have cost the company GH¢77,878.46.
He said the four will be charged with power theft, interrupting with the distribution system of ECG and conspiracy, adding that they will be put before court in the coming days.
Mr. Abariga stated that these illegal activities are costing the power distributor and the nation huge losses and entreated all to desist from them.
Aside losses, he said acts such as using a residential metre for commercial purpose also brings a lot of pressure on the transformers and affects the company’s supply system “because then we will not be able to tell exactly who are on these transformers if you have people using residential metres for commercial purpose.”
“We are ready to go to court.This must stop. It is a signal to the entire Ghanaian populace in our operational areas that these are not the thigs to do and this is not the way to go,” Mr. Abariga pointed out.
He added that it is now very easy for customers to get a metre installed for them these days hence there is no need for them to engage in illegal acts such as this.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak