Report illegal connectors to us and get 6% cash of the amount we retrieve — ECG to informants

The Electricity Company Ghana (ECG) has a rolled-out mechanism to reward 6 percent of the surcharge amount to any informant whose tip-off leads to the arrest of illegal power consumers upon confirmation of the crime.

The public is encouraged to report any act of illegal connection to the nearest ECG office or call the task force at +233551444011. The identity of the informants will remain strictly confidential.

Ms. Sakyiwaa Mensah ECG Tema Region Public Relations Officer stated this during a media encounter monitored by the Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA Consult) in Tema on Tuesday.

She also disclosed that ECG has upscale efforts to deal with illegal power consumers across the country, retrieve what they owe the company and also institute possible legal actions if necessary.

The ECG has therefore formed a National Revenue Protection Taskforce led by a Coordinator from the Ministry of Energy to unearth illegal connection activities in all ECG operational areas. The task force has also been mandated to collect all debt owed to the company.

She said, “all defaulting ECG customers and governmental institutions including State-Owned Enterprises will be disconnected by the taskforce so long as their bills are in arrears as stipulated by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission regulations”.

Ms. Mensah said the ECG reserves the right to publish the names of customers whose bills are in arrears and advised customers to pay their bills to avoid embarrassment.

She also urged customers to inspect the Identification Cards of anyone or group of persons who will appear as ECG task force officers and cooperate fully with the officials in the interest of the nation.

In a related development Mr. Emmanuel Appoe, Tema Regional ECG Engineer has reiterated that ECG, Tema Region has invested a total of GHC989,800.00 in five major projects to improve reliable power supply to customers within its operational areas.

He said out of the total amount, GHC142,141.92 was invested in the upgrading of undersized conductors serving Tema Community eight and its environs.

The Tema Regional Office covers Tema, Nungua, Prampram, Afienya, Ashaiman, Ada, and Krobo districts.

.Mr Appoe said the project was undertaken within the first half of the year 2021 and included the construction of links between two of their main overhead sub-transmission to benefit Tema Communities five, and eleven and parts of Community six.

Mr. Appoe who is the Acting General Manager of ECG Tema said the construction of the link makes it possible for the transfer of load from one feeder to the other in case of repair works to ensure continuous power supply.

He added that another project was the restoration of faulty underground sub-transmission link cables between two substations to ensure that Communities five, six, and ten get a better supply of power.

“In some areas, the Company realized that the load on the available transformers’ were getting too high, hence, resulting in low voltage to customers in the catchment area. Several transformers were added to the existing ones serving Power City and surrounding areas in Prampram, Community 19, and behind the Emef Estate,” he said.

The Company, he said was committed to its mission of providing safe, quality, and reliable electricity services to clients, therefore, the reason for investing heavily in the projects.

He urged developers, and the general public to desist from encroaching on the right of way which might have electricity network installations saying doing so often led to unnecessary delays in case of faults repairing, which eventually leads to delayed outage periods.

He also admonished the public against illegal connections which end up overloading ECG’s transformers and therefore people the public to report suspected cases of illegal connections.

“Illegal connections are one of the main reasons for transformer overloads, which leads to low voltages for consumers and sometimes, a total breakdown of the transformers, hence, plunging customers into outages till the transformers are replaced,” Mr. Appoe stated.