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A man believed to be in his mid-20s was at dawn yesterday electrocuted when he attempted to steal an Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) transformer.

The incident, which happened along the Tema Motorway, occurred when he climbed a pole on which a transformer had been mounted to carry out the illegal act.

Tools found around the deceased included spanners, screw drivers and a plier. He wore a green T-shirt over a pair of black trousers when his body was found by the poles.

The Public Relations Manager of the ECG, Mr William Boateng, told the Daily Graphic that it had become the habit of thieves, under the cover of darkness, to climb poles on which transformers had been mounted to steal the copper windings in them.
Load-shedding

Such incidents, he said, mostly occurred in areas where there was load-shedding.

According to him, when thieves succeeded in climbing the poles on which transformers had been mounted, they pushed down the transformers, opened them and removed the copper windings to sell.

“In the case of this guy I suspect that because there was no illumination around, he thought there was load-shedding and that there was no power in the transformer.

However, I believe as soon as he held it in an attempt to push it down, it electrocuted him,” Mr Boateng narrated.

The police, he said, were later called to the scene of the incident after which they conveyed the body to the mortuary.

Loss
In a related development, the ECG lost more than GH¢900,000 in the last quarter of 2015 through the theft of over 30 transformers belonging to the company.

Mr Boateng said some criminals with technical background took advantage of the load-shedding exercise to steal the transformers.

Precautionary measures
As part of measures to curb the trend of events, he said the ECG had reported the issue to the Ghana Police Service, who were on high alert to respond promptly.

The ECG, he said, was in the process of welding all transformers to make it difficult for the criminals to dismount them at any point in time.

He advised the public to keep off the company’s equipment for their own safety and in the interest of the country.

New tariff regime
In a related development, Mr Boateng explained that the current dissatisfaction of customers on the billing system of ECG was as a result of the implementation of the new tariff adjustment regime by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC).

“The PURC gave the power sector tariff adjustment of 59.2 per cent, effective December 14, 2015. Now, ECG’s billing circle starts on the 14th and ends on the last day of the month. So, the system billed customers based on the new tariff from January 1, this year, which should not have been so. The difference would be refunded to them,” he said.

He assured the public that the situation would be normalised by the beginning of next month.