Eastern Regional ECG Warns Customers Against Using Illegal Meters

Ghana Electricity Company

The Ghana Electricity Company (ECG) in the Eastern region has warned locals to beware of unscrupulous people who make frantic efforts to infiltrate the electricity distribution network with meters illegal.

Mr. Michael Baah, director general of the Eastern region, said two people were arrested in New Abirem district, while three people were also arrested in Suhum district in connection with illegal meters and we are currently assisting the police with investigations.

“The company is therefore sending a strong signal to all those involved in such acts to stop,” he said.

He said the regional office was not going to rest on its oars but work hard to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators or anyone intending to engage in such criminal activity.

Mr Baah, who was speaking at a press briefing in Koforidua, explained that these illegal meters were also fake and were affixed with stickers to appear as if they were from ECGs.

He said the power company during the investigation detected these meters to be of very poor quality.

“After installing the blind side of the company, the company is not able to charge them, which increases the losses of the system for the company over the years,” he said.

He also said that the samples detected in the New Abirem were molded in such a way that they could easily cause an electric shock when touched by unsuspecting customers.
He further stated that the illegal activity is putting a lot of pressure on the ECG distribution transformers.

He said that the overloading of ECG transformers by these illegal meters contributed to the damage of most of the transformers, causing huge financial losses to the company’s operating budget in the eastern region.

Mr. Baah therefore urged all customers and potential customers to refrain from acquiring meters from sources other than ECG.

He said the company has enough meters to meet customer demands and asked district managers to speed up the meter acquisition process to help resolve the issue of the delay in meter acquisition.

In addition, the company was making frantic efforts to improve its services and therefore begged the public to help ECG to serve them better.