GT staff nabed for stealing company's cables

Koforidua, Oct. 31, GNA - The Eastern Regional Police command and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) have arrested four employees of Ghana Telecom (GT) for hacking the company's overhead cables valued at 28 millions cedis.

The suspects are Ebenezer Anim, 55, Michael Acquaye, 28, Eric Oppong, 34 and Moro Inusah, 34. They are all telephone technicians based at GT's Koforidua office.

The Eastern Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police Felix Asare-Darko, told journalists that GT notified the security agencies after having realized the increasing spate in the hacking of its overhead cables.

He said on October 26, this year, the security agencies, acting on a tip-off, located a number of cables hidden in a sheep pen in the house of Ebenezer Anim at Nsukawo, a suburb of Koforidua.

The Police Commander said Rosemary Tetteh, wife of Anim vehemently denied that any cables were in their pen but the security agents went ahead to inspect the place and retrieved eight mini sacks of the cables. Anim was arrested and during interrogations, he mentioned Acquaye, Oppong and Inusah as accomplices. According to the Regional Commander, Ghana Telecom has this year alone lost 56 million cedis worth of cables through stealing and warned that the security agencies were determined to clamp down on the miscreants.

The Head of Communication of GT, Major (rtd) Albert Don-Chebe, said the company had suffered its heaviest loss in Accra, Tema and Kumasi and said any information by any individual which would help expose any cable theft would be rewarded with five millions cedis and 10 million cedis if the informant personally makes the arrest.

He said some persons had already been rewarded for volunteering information leading to the arrest of about twenty people, including staff of GT, and assured that the company would not shield any member of staff caught in such shameful acts.