Thieves cut ECG cables

Some parts of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis were plunged into darkness last Friday following the cutting of underground cables belonging to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) by some alleged thieves.

The purported thieves dug deep into the ground and made away with some 600 meters of ECG’s underground cables worth GHC1 million.

The areas that were affected included the Takoradi Port, Ghana Cement, Takoradi Flour Mills areas as well as other strategic installations in Takoradi.

Western Region Public Relations Officer of ECG, Phillip Osei Bonsu, revealed that the obstruction in power supply to the facilities would cost the Company over GHC200,000 to fix.

He stressed the need for the general public to help ECG by protecting the assets of the company.

“The public needs to be educated that what happens in Takoradi, for instance, has an effect on the entire network, that is how come we had a total blackout in the most parts of the metropolis on Friday dawn,” he explained.

He described incident as unfortunate and indicated that ECG was collaborating with the police to bring the culprits to book.

“We are very hopeful, the lead we have so far will assist the police in investigations”, he revealed.

The Cables and Network Manager of ECG in the region, Nelson Asimenu told journalists that the thieves operated for a number of days to be able to dig out the cables.

He said his outfit was alerted about the theft by a contractor who was fixing a problem in an area adjacent to where the cables were stolen.

“Since it is an emergency, we are doing everything possible to restore power” he assured.