Kofi Mensah, the suspect
A 40-year-old trader, Kofi Mensah, is in the grips of the Amasaman divisional police command for stealing power and reconnecting to the national grid after officials of the Electricity Company of Ghana Ltd. (ECG) disconnected him for illegal connection.
The suspect defied several orders and reconnected multiple times whenever staff of ECG disconnected him from the grid.
Information available indicates that Kofi Mensah went to the extent of extending the illegal connection to other homes and facilities in the area.
The Amasaman District Manager of ECG, Kingsley Opoku who confirmed the arrest said that on one of its usual monitoring exercises, field staff identified the suspect who was using an unauthorized metre at ‘Nii Aryee’, a suburb of Pokuase.
He said a closer inspection revealed that the metre had been illegally moved from another district, and so the suspect was disconnected and directed to visit the ECG office to regularize his relationship with the company.
Mr. Opoku continued that the Kofi Mensah refused to visit the office but illegally reconnected himself to the grid and continued to reconnect himself anytime he was disconnected.
“We were further alarmed when we realised that the customer had now used a cable to directly connect his premises to the low voltage cables that serve the community. He had also extended this illegal supply to other customers in the area,” Mr. Opoku.
He said that the actions of the suspect did not only pose danger to himself and other customers, but it also led to technical challenges with the transformer that serves the community.
The suspect initially resisted an attempt by staff of the Company to disconnect him, prompting the involvement of the police who ensured that the disconnection was done.
Meanwhile, the ECG Accra West General Manager, Emmanuel Akinie, has warned customers to desist from interfering with ECG’s distribution network.
According to him, such interferences do not only pose danger to the unauthorised individuals but could cause fire outbreaks, leading to damage of properties.
“We are consistently reviewing our strategies to identify, surcharge and prosecute any persons found to be stealing power or engaged in other forms of illegalities that negatively affect our system,” he said.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak