The Accra West Region of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) said it retrieved GH¢5,288,148.00 from 2,550 customers, who illegally utilised electricity without paying, from January to December, 2018.

The amount is a 28 per cent increment over similar recoveries made in 2017 and represented a total of GH¢5,033,799 KWh of electricity units.

Mr George Appiah-Kubi, the Accra West Regional General Manager of the ECG, who announced this in a statement to the Ghana News Agency on Wednesday, said the monies were retrieved as a result of a massive revenue protection campaign launched in the Region, in January last year.

He said the campaign was to rid the system of illegalities and power theft, which deprived the Company of huge sums of revenues.

“We formed a special revenue protection team to visit and audit the authenticity of electricity connections to all facilities in the Region,” he said.

“The team, among other things, uncovered customers who were illegally using power.”

“Records of these customers were taken, and they were billed to pay for the cost of power they had illegally used,” he said.

Mr Appiah-Kubi said as a result of the successes chalked in the 2018 campaign, the revenue mobilisation exercise would be intensified this year to achieve zero-per cent power theft in the Region.

It said in this year’s exercise, aside surcharging a customer for the unpaid power consumed, it would collaborate with the security agencies to prosecute any person found to have engaged in power theft.

Meanwhile, Mr Ebenezer Yao Fiador, the Accra West Revenue Protection Manager of the ECG, has warned against any temptation to engage in power theft and entreated the public to volunteer information on illegal connections.

He assured the public that the identity of persons who provided credible information would be protected and such informants paid a percentage of the amount recovered.

Mr Fiador pointed out the negative effects of power theft on ECG’s operations, including delay in the payment of power producers for the power sold to the distributor.

That, he said, constrained the Company from undertaking regular system improvement and expansion projects.

The Accra West Region of the ECG has seven operational districts; Kaneshie, Korle-Bu, Dansoman, Ablekuma, Nsawam, Bortianor and Achimota.

Source: GNA