A pastor of the New Life Baptist Rock Assemblies at North Legon in Accra, Kwame Boateng and his tenant, Kwame Amoako were last Saturday arraigned before an Accra Circuit Court for illegal power connection and theft of power.
They pleaded not guilty to the charges and were each granted bail in the sum of GH₵10,000 with two sureties to re-appear on January 9, 2016.
Briefing the court, Inspector Justice Dogbatse of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) investigations unit said on November 8, 2015 a team of ECG staff went on a monitoring exercise at East Legon and went to the house of the accused.
There, he said it was detected that seven rooms and four shops on the first floor of the three storey building had been connected directly while two meters in the facility had also been bypassed.
The two were subsequently arrested and in their caution statements, they admitted the offence.
A total bill of GH₵19,162.62 was given to Kwame Boateng and he has since paid GH₵11,140.00.
No mercy for power thieves In an interview with the Daily Graphic after the court proceedings, the manager in charge of prosecutions at the ECG, Mr Paul Assibi Abariga who represented the state, said the ECG was committed to ridding the nation of people who had made it their business to cheat the taxpayer by illegally connecting power.
He warned that the exercise, which is national in character, would not spare anyone found anyone caught for power theft.
“It is unfair that while a good number of Ghanaians are faithfully paying for what they consume, others decide to cheat the system. That is unpatriotism. The right action would be taken in ensuring that the right things are done in order to safeguard power efficiency for all,” he said.
Special national exercise The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in collaboration with the security agencies, commenced a special national exercise from Saturday, August 1, 2015, aimed at clamping down on persons who had connected power illegally.
The exercise involved visits to all customers of the company to ascertain the nature of their electricity connection and the state of electricity metres.
The Managing Director of the company, Mr Robert Dwamena had said that the move had been occasioned by wanton theft of power on the part of some unscrupulous elements that undermined the revenue drive of the company. He said in spite of existence of loss control outfits in the company, the theft of power was now becoming “overwhelmingly high”.
In another development an electrician, Albert Mensah who stole an Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) master card with an infinite amount of credit on it and was moving round selling ECG credit to customers illegally has been fined 100 penalty units or in default serve three months in prison.
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