Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Collaborate to sustain war on fake meters

On Wednesday, the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) intercepted 700 fake meters at the Dabala Junction checkpoint in the Volta Region.

According to the Customs officers on duty that day, they found the meters during a thorough inspection of a bus heading to Accra from Aflao.

Interestingly, none of the passengers on the bus claimed ownership of them and so were impounded by the Cus­toms officers.

The Ghanaian Times could not readily ascertain what the GRA was going to do next, but we know the Authority knows its work and so will carry out the necessary investigations to identify the owner(s) of the fake meters and their collaborators and bring them to book.

Meanwhile, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has come in to educate the public about what fake meters are and the dangers associated with them.

It has, thus, appealed to the public to not procure electric­ity meters from anywhere else but the accredited or mandat­ed organisations.

The ECG has also asked the public to help it fight against the menace of fake meters in the country.

We are using this editorial as our contribution to win­ning that fight and so like to provide here some important information from the power provider.

According to the ECG, fake meters are first and foremost those imported by individuals, groups, or organisations other than the ECG itself, Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NED­CO), and the Ministry of Energy.

It explains that these three organisations are so far the only ones mandated by law and given the license to import meters into the country.

This means anyone procur­ing an electricity meter from any other source does so at his or her own risk.

The public should in addition note that procuring a meter from even an employee of any of the organizations without the due authority is illegal.

We believe if members of the public abide by only this piece of information about the acquisition or procurement of electricity meters, there will be no motivation for any individual or organisation to import meters because there will be no market for them.

This brings in the question “What creates the need for the fake meters in the country?”

Over the years, the ECG itself, for instance, made it so cumbersome for the public to acquire the meters and so some of their employees and middlemen facilitated the acquisition and that eased the problem of prospective customers getting the meters.

We believe as the ECG wages the war against fake meters, it will correspondingly ease its process of granting me­ters to the public.

The ECG says the fake meters are substandard as they are not tested and calibrated to meet the re­quired standards of our country and so can make users incur higher electricity bills.

Besides, since the fake meters are illegal, anyone using one, if found, can be charged with a criminal offense and prosecuted.

The worst aspect of the whole matter is that the sub­standard meters can cause fire outbreaks and the repercussions are obvious – destruction of property and death.

It is about time the ECG, NEDCO, and the Ministry of Energy collaborated with main stakeholders like the GRA Customs Division, the police, other security agencies, the district assemblies, and the media to sustain the war on fake meters.