Illegal electricity connection kills hairdresser

A 26-year-old hairdresser has been electrocuted to death in her attempt to illegally connect electricity from a source close to an uncompleted building where she resides with her husband and children.

The sad incident occurred at Soldier Line at Gbetsile in the Kpone-Katamanso District.


According to the Tema Regional Police Command, the incident happened last Saturday at about 6.30pm, and the deceased, Hannah Appiah, and her husband, Kwaku Yeboah, who is a labourer in the construction field, have been living in the uncompleted building for about five years.


The Head of the Tema Regional Police Command Public Relations Unit, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Olivia Turkson, told The Finder that the building belongs to a tanker driver friend of the couple who used to live at Community 11 in Tema.


She said the house is not connected to the national grid so the occupants often connected electricity illegally from nearby sources for their domestic purposes, including watching TV and listening to radio.


On that fateful day, Hannah was said to be connecting wires from their usual source to watch TV when she was electrocuted.


At the time of the incident, the deceased was carrying her one-and-half-year-old baby boy, who was incidentally thrown off her back by the force from the electrocution

However, he was saved by their 10-year-old son, whose alarm caught people's attention to their aid.


The police said Hannah was immediately rushed to the Tema General Hospital (TGH), but was pronounced dead on arrival.


The body of the deceased has been deposited at the TGH morgue awaiting autopsy while investigations continue, ASP Turkson said.


The Tema Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Beatrice Zakpaa Vib-Sanziri, for her part, advised the general public to desist from stealing government's property, reminding that using electricity illegally is a criminal offence punishable by law.


She called for an attitudinal change, and challenged the public to volunteer information on illegal electricity connections to the police or the appropriate authorities for swift action and save the state money.


She said innocent lives and properties could have been lost if Hannah’s action had caused fire.

DCOP Vib-Sanziri used the opportunity to advise drivers to be wary of car snatching syndicates in the region.


The carjackers’ modus operandi, she educated, includes not bargaining the fare the drivers charge for their service, and in the middle of the journey, the jackers take their victims to isolated places, where they rob them of their vehicles at gunpoint.


Other jackers, she said, familiarise with the drivers and later offer them drinks laced with drugs, which daze their victims and enable them snatch the cars.


DCOP Vib-Sanziri advised drivers to be on their guard and to watch out for suspicious characters and report them to the nearest police station.