Salon owner arrested for locking up police, ECG officials

Akwasi Asiamah, a 28-year-old owner of a hairdressing salon at Amokom in Kumasi has been arrested by the police for locking up a police officer and officials of the Electricity Company of Ghana in his shop.

His action is said to have followed an attempt by a police CID and the ECG personnel to cause his arrest for illegally tapping power into his shop and also owing the power distributor over GHC7,000 for the illegal connection.

According to a Graphic Online report sighted by GhanaWeb, the acting Public Relations and Communication Manager for the Ashanti Strategic Business Unit of the ECG, Mr Erasmus Kyere Baidoo, narrated that on January 9, 2021, officials of EC visited Asiamah’s salon and detected that he had tapped into a single-phase energy metre to connect power to his salon.

It was again detected that he had consumed illegal power for a year which amounted to GH¢7,486.56, that is 6792 Kwh, and was accordingly billed.

Mr Baidoo narrated that several attempts to get Asiamah to settle the cost failed and that necessitated another visit by the police and ECG to his salon on February 2, 2021.

He said the officials having disconnected the power supply to the shop on the first visit realized on the second visit that the shop owner had illegally reconnected his salon to a nearby shop and was working with an uninterrupted power supply.

The officials upon this realization are said to have confronted the salon operator about the illegal act and threatened to arrest him for having committed an offence.

"However, Mr Asiamah who was angered by the attempt of the police and the personnel from ECG to arrest him, got out of the salon and used two big padlocks to lock them in the salon and left the scene,” Mr Baidoo said.

According to the ECG PR Manager, Asiamah after locking up the shop with the police officer and the ECG officials still inside went to the Asokwa Police Station and made a complaint that robbers had come to his salon to rob and then went ahead to give the number of the police CID who was part of the people locked up in the shop as a suspect.

"When the number was called, the officer identified himself and asked that Asiamah be detained.

"Asiamah was later transferred from the Asokwa Police Station to the Kumasi Central Police," Mr Baidoo said.

Mr Baidoo in his narration revealed that the stranded ECG officials and the police officer had to place a call for help and endured being locked up for a while before they were rescued by another police officer who brought the keys to open the locks for them.