Participants at the event
Acting Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Ing Samuel Boakye-Appiah has indicated that the company has retrieved a total of GH¢23 million over a period of one year as a result of the clamping down on illegal connections and replacement of faulty metres in some parts of the country.
Ing. Boakye-Appiah disclosed this to the media on the sidelines of the eighth edition of ECG’s Engineers’ Forum held on Thursday at the Accra International Conference Centre under the theme: “Application of Knowledge is Fundamental To System Reliability & Operational Efficiency.”
The forum was established about four years ago to provide the platform for engineers and ECG to come together to discuss technical operational issues affecting ECG’s operations and propose solutions for those challenges to be addressed to serve customers better.
The Acting MD indicated that the recovery was made possible through the introduction of what he termed ECG’s Revenue Protection Programme in 2016 which was intensified this year.
Revenue Protection Programme requires that ECG staff visit customers’ premises and look at the integrity of wiring and the metres and their performance to see whether there have been any infractions on ECG’s network, he said.
Cases
Earlier, Ing. D.B. Asamoah, in a presentation titled ‘Role of Revenue Protection In System Loss Reduction – 2010 to June 2017 Performances, Achievements and Challenges,’ observed that ECG has discovered a total of 512 illegal connections.
Out of that figure, 354 cases have been tried so far and 17 persons had been jailed at the Nsawam Prisons.
Most of the illegal connections, he said, were allegedly done by individuals and businesses with the assistance of ECG workers.
Replacement Programme
Meanwhile, the Acting MD noted that the electricity company was embarking on an extensive replacement of most of its obsolete equipment nationwide.
“We have been implementing plans to replace all obsolete equipment that we have had over the past 35 years, he said.
He added that “As I speak to you right now, we have replaced almost of the obsolete equipment in Accra and Tema operational areas; the latest being our bulk supply point at Achimota where we have completely replaced the 33 KV board that supply power to most Eastern parts of Accra.’
To a large extent, most of the obsolete equipment have been replaced, according to him, adding that the replacement has resulted in system reliability in recent times.
By Melvin Tarlue