ECG to name and shame 'power thieves'

The Eastern Regional branch of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is to use a ‘name and shame’ strategy in tandem with prosecution of culprits to deal with growing illegal connection in the region.

The region, through the efforts of the Revenue Protection Unit (RPU), retrieved GH¢ 87,893.00 from detected illegal connections such as meter tempering, unauthorized service connections, damaged meter, bypass, and self-reconnection in the system in 2017.

The Eastern Regional Manager, Ing. Michael Baah said this during interaction with the media on operations of the company in the region on Thursday.

“The illegal connection incidents in the Eastern Region increased over the past two years due to increase in electricity tariff. Since the time the tariff was increased, people started to at least carry out illegal connections and these have affected,” the regional manager stated.

He added that “we have instituted measures dubbed ‘name and shame’ of culprits of illegal connection activities. The company will not hesitate to broadcast and publish the names and pictures of culprits of illegal connection activities in the media. Furthermore, perpetrators of illegal connection activities would be brought before a competent court of jurisdiction to be prosecuted.”

He also mentioned cable theft, non-payment of bills and bush fires as some of the challenges militating against the operations of ECG in the region.

Despite these challenges, the company connected 27,737 customers across the region in 2017 through government’s Self Help Electrification Project and ECG’s Rural Electrification Project.

Three Customer Service Centers worth GH¢ 1,747,455.24 have also been constructed to serve customers around Anyinam, Kukurantumi and Abetifi as part of decentralisation of its services