Ghana’s power distribution company, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has lost a whopping GHc1, 308,581.63 as a result of power theft.
The power theft was detected after a day and night operations carried out in seven regions by the Revenue Protection Unit of ECG from December 21, 2019, to January 7, this year in seven regions.
Out of 1,578 meters visited, the operation taskforces of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Revenue Protection Unit recorded 100 illegal connections.
The total charges of all the culprits amounted to GHc1, 460,795.79 but as at January 13, 2020, only GHc152, 214.16 had been paid to the ECG, which owes its creditor, Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), an enormous amount.
Michael Twum-Barima Boadu, General Manager of the Revenue Protection Unit, told journalists in Accra that hotels, night clubs, pubs and some suspicious homes were visited unannounced for the operation.
“We chose the holiday period because that was when we knew power thievery would be very high.
“We carried out the operations in Accra West, Accra East, Tema, Eastern, ASBU, Western and Central regions.
“We recovered 3,600 total kilowatt/hour (Kwh) units of power from the Eastern Region and that was the least. Accra West recorded the highest theft…the total charge was GHc1,056,421.94 and the balance to collect from the suspects is GHc1,040,969.78,” Michael Twum-Barima Boadu explained.
He said any one kilowatt of power lost is equivalent to US$17 million.
“So, I can tell you that we are losing a lot of revenues to illegal connections and we are going to go hard on power thieves,” Mr Boadu promised.
Source: www.energynewsafrica.com
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