Pastor caught for stealing electricity worth Gh¢19k

A reverend minister with the New Life Baptist Rock Assemblies is being prosecuted at an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly stealing electricity and connecting to 11 others for a fee.

Rev. Min. Kwame Boateng was arrested by the Electricity Company of Ghana’s investigative unit at East Legon on November 8, 2015.

According to the investigative team, it detected that the house belonging to the religious leader had bypassed power and connected to seven single rooms and six other shops on his compound.

The team also arrested the caretaker of the house, Kwame Amoako, who had collected various sums as electricity bills from the tenants but refused to pay the monies to the power distributor.

According to the tenants, they made several requests to the man of God for separate meters but that never happened. A total bill of Gh¢ 19,162.62 was given to the Reverend Minister out of which he had paid about Gh¢ 12,940.

The two pleaded not guilty before His Worship Worlanyo Kotoku and later wanted to change their plea to guilty, but the judge declined, asking them to do so at the next sitting on January 9, 2016.

They have been granted bail.

The manager in charge of prosecution at ECG Paul Assibi Abariga told Starr News the monitoring team will intensify its work during the festive season to arrest anyone who decides to take advantage of the season to steal power.

“We are out there for them that is why this season we are not going to have anything called Christmas, we are going to be on duty 24/7. So if they think that we are going to rest on our oars and we are going for the festive season and for that matter it is a leeway for them they can do illegal connection during this period it is a dream,” Abariga said.