Police in Abuakwa with support from the Revenue Protection unit of the ECG have arrested a 54 year old man, John Fofie, for installing fake metres for some people at Kunsu in the Ahafo Ano South West district of the Ashanti region.
He has been accused of replacing people’s post-paid metres which has debt on it with fake metres in the community.
According to sources, officials of the Electricity Company of Ghana had installed new postpaid metres in the home of the affected people, but routine checks by officers uncovered that the culprit had replaced the them with fake postpaid ones.
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This development came when the officials on the Revenue mobilization drive detected the problem in the area.
The exercise which has helped ECG to retrieve GH₵50million within two weeks is expected to retrieve all the GH₵1.2billion owe the company by customers.
The exercise, which started about two weeks ago also uncovered other illegalities, according to officials of the power distribution company.
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Officials from ECG after detecting the problem and interrogating the suspect led to the arrest of John Fofie, the man installing the fake meters in the area.
Checks conducted in his room discovered seven fake postpaid metres which have all been confiscated by the ECG.
Speaking to the media in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional Director of the Revenue Protection Unit of the ECG, Ing Kofi Danso, said they are on lookout for other culprits including the one who illegally transferred the metres.
He said the company’s surveillance over the past months has revealed that some unscrupulous people have been making frantic efforts to infiltrate their stable electricity distribution network with illegal metres.
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He further explained that “such illegal metres are also fake and have been affixed with stickers to appear as though it was coming from the Electricity company of Ghana.”
Ing Danso, stated further that “it will also not rest on its oars but work hard to arrest and prosecute perpetrators or any persons with intentions to undertake such criminal activities”
“Three metre bypasses were discovered. The culprits weren’t available. The police have asked them to report themselves to the police station. Officials have also detected 50 fake prepaid meters at the Race Course Market in Kumasi.
“The monitoring is one of many exercises the ECG is conducting in the region following the growing cases of illegal power use in the region,” he stated.
By Benjamin Aidoo|AkomaFM|Onuaonline.com
