It has emerged that some prepaid customers in the Kpong area of the Lower Manya Krobo municipality of the Eastern Region are engaging in power theft by bypassing the new meters to directly connect power to their homes.
A joint team involving personnel of the Electricity company of Ghana (ECG) and the military uncovered and disconnected several illegal power connections, mostly at Kpong-Lorlornyor where a monitoring exercise of the area began on Friday.
The ECG has in recent times intensified the fight against power theft, meter bypasses and other illegal activities resulting in the loss of revenue for the power distributor, to fish out customers who had engaged in any form of illegality.
The company months ago began the controversial installation of prepaid meters in the Krobo area with most members of the area openly rejecting the new policy.
The latest development therefore comes as very little surprise to many.
The team discovered that several prepaid customers had bypassed the prepaid meters and connected directly from the main power lines, which means power consumed did not pass through the meters.
Before the team arrived, most of the culprits who got wind of the exercise vacated their residences. The team after disconnecting power to the houses issued a writ of summons to the culprits to report at its Somanya office.
Detailing the circumstances that necessitated the exercise, Miss Mary Sakyiwaa Mensah disclosed that the exercise formed part of the regular monitoring by the ECG.
“As part of ECG’s normal operational activities, we monitor our meters every now and then be it prepaid meters, postpaid meters, we do monitoring every now and then so today in our Krobo District, we did monitoring in Lorlornyo in Kpong and Odumase,” said the PRO.
One of the alleged culprits, madam Bertha Agbalenyo denied knowledge about the illegality, explaining to GhanaWeb that she travelled leaving her children behind and was therefore not aware of the development upon her return.
“I know nothing about this. I live here with my children. I travelled to Accra, it’s just this morning they came before I realized what was amiss,” she said.
The team also cut cables supplying power to the entire residence of the Member of Parliament for the area, Honourable Ebenezer Okletey Terlabi who had reconnected power to his apartment from a postpaid meter owned by an another occupant in a different block in his house.
The lawmaker had been without power since July 27, 2022 after he was served notice of an alleged illegal power connection at his house.
A combined team of ECG and military personnel, prior to the July disconnection, noticed the purported illegal connection when they went to the MP’s residence to assess a case in relation to two stolen newly installed prepaid meters.
The PRO said, “In Odumase, we realized that the MP for the Lower Manya Krobo Constituency, Mr. Ebenezer Terlabi, if we would remember, we had an issue with him early on, he reported a case of theft of two of his meters. We asked of police reports and we’re still handling that with some internal processes so as things stand today, those two apartments that do not have the meters, they are supposed to have been disconnected however on our monitoring we realized that those two apartments had power. Upon further investigations on the field we realized that the two apartments had been connected from a third meter…ECG considers this as illegal connection so currently, we have disconnected that apartment.”
Madam Sakyiwaa furthered that the ECG, backed by the powers to prosecute cases of illegal connections issued a writ of summons to the offenders to report at its Somanya office for further investigations.
Those found culpable risk paying a fine or even facing a jail term.
The exercise is expected to continue to other parts of the Yilo Krobo and Lower Manya Krobo municipalities.
Before the team arrived, most of the culprits who got wind of the exercise vacated their residences