The nation’s power distributor, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), under the directive from the Ministry of Power has formed a taskforce to combat and bring to book, all individuals or organizations involved in illegal power connections across the country, in its resolute effort to prevent revenue loss.
The taskforce, which began its work in full, yesterday, is expected to expand its operation throughout the country, with additional mandate to focus mostly on industries, hotels, ministries and agencies, as well as individual homes, where the power theft is apparently widespread.
Speaking during the first operation of the team conducted unannounced, a Minster of Power, Mr. John Abu Jinapor, who himself led the team, disclosed to journalists that the team was on “a special unannounced energy audit exercise.
The Minister, who was accompanied by the Managing by the Managing Director (MD) of ECG, Mr. Robert Dwemena, and other top officials of the company, said they have realized that “we are having some losses attributable to energy theft, illegal connections and some bypasses.”
He explained that, the Ministry of Power and its agencies, have constituted a taskforce to conduct this exercise by examining the metering systems of their equipments to ascertain whether they have been tempered with or not.
He also explained that, the purpose of this unannounced exercise, would have been defeated if ECG, had informed the companies they visited about their coming hence the resistance by some of them.
The companies visited included; pharmaceutical Ltd and Fan Milk Company.
The Minister, therefore, declared that “from today, the special audit team, will continue to work and will visit all customers,” especially “healthy consumers.”
Mr. John Jinapor also added that, “beyond these, we are targeting hotels, night clubs, ministries departments and all government institutions that are supposed to pay for the power they have consumed.
For this reason, he noted “that is why we want to send the signal and assure you we shall collect all those monies, because the Minister of Finance indicated that all these institutions ought to be budgeting for the power they consumed.”
The Minister bemoaned, “we cannot have a system where one section of the society pays for the power they consumed while the other enjoys power without paying… it creates an imbalance; it creates inefficiently and so we are determined to pursue this course.”
He, therefore, said; “I want to use this opportunity to caution all those who are stealing power, bypassing-power theft and illegal connection that once we [ECG] get hold of you, we shall deal with you.”
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