The Ashaiman District of the Electricity Company of Ghana has discovered a total of 130 illegal connections within its operational area over a three day period.

The discoveries, which were part of a revenue mobilisation project the district was embarking on was started on Monday, March 4, 2024.

Speaking on the progress of the activities to media professionals, the Manager for the District, Ing. Kissi Ohenebeng mentioned that “with the 130 illegal connections seen, summons were given to the respective customers who started reporting to the office from Tuesday, March 5, 2024, to rectify the issues identified.”

He added that “over the three days that the project had been ongoing, his outfit, with support from a number of staff from eight other districts as well as the regional office of the Tema Region of the company had been able to visit over 5000 customers of the power distributor”.

Ing. Ohenebeng, when asked about possible prosecution of those caught with illegal connections indicated that “indeed should customers default in payments, the company is always ready to explore the possibility of addressing the situation at the court”.

He further added that “illegal connection is basically stealing, which makes it a criminal offence and admonished customers to desist from such acts as the consequences could be unpleasant.”

The Ashaiman District of the ECG is under the Tema Region, which also has Tema North, Tema South, Afienya, Prampram, Ada, Nungua, Juapong, Krobo Districts. Staff were deployed from all over the region to Ashaiman District to support the special revenue mobilisation exercise.

The Acting General Manager of the ECG Tema Region, Ing. Daniel Asare-Mensah on his part, encouraged customers to “be ready to pay for power consumed and to pay on time to avoid debt build up.”

Ing. Asare-Mensah indicated that the Ashaiman exercise would end by close of day Friday, March 8, 2024, while a similar project with support from the region’s workforce will be replicated in the other districts.

He also indicated that the Afienya and Prampram Districts will be the next to run such special revenue mobilisation exercises.

The Electricity Company of Ghana Ltd. (ECG) has commenced an exercise to replace over 450,000 old metres in the Accra West region.

The Company over the course of the exercise would be replacing postpaid, non-smart prepaid and faulty metres in the region with MMS-compliant smart prepaid metres, over the next five months.

The metre replacement exercise is part of the Company’s Loss Reduction Programme (LRP); an initiative to facilitate the installation of smart meters, and to improve energy accounting.

The programme aims to ensure the availability of metres to meet service connection requests and reduce system losses.

The Accra West region General Manager of ECG, Ing. Emmanuel Akinie assured customers of the convenience that the smart prepaid meters offer.

“With the smart prepaid metres, a customer can buy credits unto their metres from the comfort of their homes or anywhere they are, by downloading the ECG Power app, or using the short code *226#”, he said.

Mr. Akinie revealed that the officers undertaking the replacement exercise will identify themselves with official letters from ECG, authorizing their activity, and assured that outstanding balances on the old metre will be accounted for, and transferred to the customers’ new smart prepaid metre.

He said the metre replacement exercise is free, hence encouraged customers to allow the officers into their premises to replace their old metres.

Districts in the Accra West region are Ablekuma, Achimota, Amasaman, Bortianor, Dansoman, Kaneshie, Korlebu and Nsawam.

Executive Director of the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye says the public needs more information about the power outages to plan their lives and adjust accordingly.

Mr. Boakye said that the recent power outages have been caused by a combination of factors, including the shutdown of some power plants and a shortage of fuel.

Speaking on Joynews, he stated that generators like Axer could provide power, but are unable to do so because there is a shortage of fuel.

“Some of the plants are down and you should know, working with the engineers, what the timelines look like for them to come back on stream. So tell us what the timelines look like and let people plan their lives,” he said on February 29, 2024.

Mr Boakye pointed to a management crisis within the power sector.

 He said that the Energy Commission needs to ensure that all the systems are working properly, as any failure in one part of the system can affect the entire system which would result in power outages.

According to him, Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), the company that manages the power grid, is not investing enough in updating and expanding the grid.

He stated that the growing population and development in the country is increasing the demand for power and in order to meet this growing demand, the government and GRIDCo need to make significant investments in expanding and strengthening the grid.

“If that investment is not happening, you will always have challenges and the tricks will keep happening and they don’t get the money to be able to sustain the investment in the grid.”

In addition, the executive director also stated that exports are being cut which is sustaining the state institutions.

 “So it is the export revenue that they use to pay salaries and survive and now that export revenue is not there because there is shortfall, they have to cut export and meet domestic demand so they don’t have money. The cash flow is impacted and that would affect GRIDCo and GRA even worse because they are not going to get the revenue they need to be as functional as we need them to be and that is a big problem,” he said.