The Manager in charge of Revenue Protection at the Tema Regional office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Madam Cynthia Kyei Gyamfi has announced that about 96, 000 houses within Tema engaged in various forms of illegal connection last year.
She added that within the same period 97 customers were prosecuted and billed to pay for the power that had been stolen.
Speaking at a meeting with some media houses in Tema, Madam Kyei Gyamfi noted that the most prevalent recorded cases involved meter bypassing and meter tampering.
She said the company was able to recover about six million Ghana cedis out of about nine million one hundred and sixty-eight thousand that had been lost.
She said the level of illegal siphoning of power was realised when the company last year organised a routine house-to-house operation to check on its meters within some parts of the Tema region.
According to her the exercise formed part of efforts to ensure that customers pay for power they use and are deterred from stealing power.
She said “a report is currently being compiled by the headquarters to come out with a few issues and then we can bounce back to begin the next phase of the operation”
Madam Kyei Gyamfi added that customers who have been found culpable have been given time to pay their bills.
“The bills are such that customers don’t pay them at a go. It is not a mainstream billing so those who are found culpable are given a payment plan to settle their bills”
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By: Elvis Washington/citifnonline.com/Ghana