The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has
appealed to the public to assist it and security agencies to arrest individuals and groups selling fake meters to households.
According to the Company, it was losing millions of Ghana Cedis in revenue due to the activities of those syndicates.
Dr Mark Owusu Ansah, the Revenue Protection Manager of the Accra West ECG, made the appeal when the Company embarked on an exercise to remove and replace fake meters at Adeiso, in the Upper West Akim District of the Eastern Region, on Friday.
The exercise, which started on Tuesday, February 28, 2023, has so far witnessed the removal of over 400 fake meters at Adeiso only, replacing them with original ones.
It formed part of a the ‘No Fake Meter’ campaign aimed at ridding the system of all fake meters and regularising such meter users to maximise revenue.
Dr Ansah noted that the three days’ exercise, so far, had led to the removal of over 400 of such fake meters, amounting to some 1.2 gigawatt of power.
He said, monetary-wise, over GhS1 million of revenue had been lost as a result of the use of the fake meters over the past one to three years.
‘From 28th February to March 2, 2023, we’ve recovered 400 of them and this 400, when you quantify the loses they’ve created, within these three days, we’ve been able to recover 1.2 gigawatts,’ he said.
The Revenue Protect Manger added that ‘when you compare this 1.2gigawatts to cash term, it is GhS1 million plus within this three days so if we should recover 1000s of them, then you understand the harm they are causing,’ he added.
In 2021, the Accra West Region alone lost close to GHS4 million in nine months through illegal connection activities.
Illegal connection activities robbed the Company of some 3.9 million kilowatts per hour (3.9mkWh) of power between the months of January and September 2021, resulting in a revenue loss of GHS3.9 million to the Company.
He said the Company was, therefore, collaborating with State security agencies, including the Police and the National Investigation Bureau (NIB) to arrest the syndicates and solicited support from the public.
‘Those who are selling these meters, whoever knows where they are should come to us privately. We will protect your identity, help us to get them so that we put a stop to it. If anybody also think by his own can organise the Police to arrest them should arrest them, let ECG know and we will come for them,’ he encouraged.
Dr Ansah also indicated that the Company would continue with the exercise until it got rid of all such fake meters.
He urged persons who were using such meters to come forward and help the Company replaced the meters at no cost.
‘We’ll remove and replace it with a genuine meter and recover whatever the customer has used to defray some of our losses but fortunately, ECG, being a good services Company, it has been with people for three years, two years, etc, we are here to correct. So, we’ll replace the meter and recover for only one year because some of them were innocent,’ said Dr Ansah.
‘We have some of them that deliberately went for the meters. Some too were swindled, they were duped, they had no idea. Some too took it from SHEP, SHEP is different. This one, it’s not the mode of supply that is worrying us but because it cannot capture any unit,’ he added.
The ECG, in October last year, commenced an exercise in some communities in the Eastern Region to rid the system of fake meters where the situation was prevalent.
The communities are Daaman, Sakyikrom, Amoakrom, Duadekye, Ntoaso, Kofisah and Newton, are Akwamu, Oparekrom, Nkyenen-kyene, Amanfrom and Adeiso, all in the Nsawam district.
The exercise was carried out by the Accra West ECG in collaboration with the ECG Nsawam District Office.
Source: Ghana News Agency