Police in Dzodze in the Ketu North District of the Volta Region on Tuesday July 12, 2016, arrested an electrician for allegedly selling and installing illegal electricity metres to unsuspecting residents.
The suspect, Gilbert Edo Abefa,  who was arrested after a recent monitoring exercise by the Revenue Protection Unit (RPU) of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) was put before the Aflao circuit court and was remanded to reappear on Tuesday, July 26, 2016.
According to head of ECG’s Revenue Protection Unit in the Volta Region, Richard Bavor, while on its regular operation to identify and rid the system of any illegalities, the team was alarmed by the huge number of installed meters which had not been captured by the ECG.
“The high number of uncaptured meters we initially came across made us suspicious, and so we decided to conduct further investigations to determine the source of these meters,†he said, adding that “with the help of the townsfolk, we identified the single source of all these meters which had been installed on the blind side of the ECG, which owners were consuming electricity without paying.â€
Initiial checks revealed that about 95 of those meters had been installed since April 2016 by Gilbert, in connivance with other electricians in the town, for between GH¢ 300.00 and GH¢ 450.00 each for customers who wanted new service and others whose power supply had been disconnected by the ECG for non-payment of bills.
The Volta Regional General Manager of the ECG, Ing. Joseph Forson, who appreciated and commended the support of the Ghana Police Service, revealed that the campaign to audit all electricity service connections in the region had been revamped to make it more sustainable and effective.
“Our target is to make our distribution system ‘illegality-free’ within a very short time, so we have reviewed our methods of identifying and stopping all kinds of power theft in the system,†he said, accordig to Daily Guide.