Chairman of the GPRTU Kpando Station in Kasoa, Issah Salifu, who confirmed the incident explained that a parcel was brought to be transported to Kpando in the Volta Region.

According to him, after interrogation, they found out that they were electrical meters.

Mr. Salifu then hinted to the police at Kasoa Under Bridge, who apprehended the suspect.

The station officer, Chief Inspector Benjamin Asunkey then contacted the Kasoa North District Manager, Ing. Phaney Adiko to help identify the meters.

Ing. Phaney indicated that those were fake meters which were not from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

The suspect, upon further interrogation by the police, refused to give information about the sender or receiver of the fake meters.

He was then arraigned before the Akweley Magistrate Court on January 18, 2024 and remanded to reappear on February 6, 2024.

The General Manager of ECG in the Central Region, Mr. Emmanuel Lumor, reacting to the incident stated that ECG is the only company mandated in the Southern sector to distribute electricity and to provide meters for service connection.

He said these fake meters are substandard and can cause fire outbreaks, overloading of transformers and outages.

Mr. Lumor therefore advised customers to desist from acquiring meters from other sources apart from ECG.

“The company is clamping down on these fake meters because of the adverse effect on our operations,” he added.

He added that customers should not hesitate to visit ECG’s offices for service connection requests and other related services.

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The meters are estimated to cost the power distribution company about GH¢2 million in revenue loss monthly.

They were identified in homes in eight operational ECG districts in the region — Makola, Legon, Mampong, Kwabenya, Dodowa, Adenta, Teshie and Roman Ridge.

Bearing the inscription: ‘Property of the Ministry of Power (Ghana Electrometer)’, some of the meters were confiscated in the Ayi-Mensah/Kweiman Electoral Area and its environs during the initial stages of an ongoing nationwide revenue mobilisation exercise which is expected to end on April 20, this year.

It also emerged that, during the exercise conducted by the Accra East Region of the ECG at Ayi Mensah on April 14, some of the suspects had illegally reconnected power directly from the supply pole.

Investigation

The Commercial Manager in charge of the Accra East Region of the ECG, Jonathan Asante, in an interview with the Daily Graphic during the exercise, said investigations showed that the fake meters were not part of the self-help electrification programme (SHEP) approved by the Ministry of Energy.

According to him, the SHEP meters were introduced by the government to encourage communal participation or self-help developmental initiatives in communities.

He added that the fake meters, which caused fire outbreaks, had not been certified or approved by either the Energy Commission (EC) or the ECG.

The manager further said investigations indicated that the fake meters had been installed in the homes of some unsuspecting consumers across the country.

“It is estimated that about 20,000 of these fake meters are in existence in the Accra East Region alone.

We have also intercepted some from the Central, Ashanti, Volta and Great Accra regions.

“Very soon, we will close in on the people behind this illegality, but our initial checks show that the fake meters were smuggled into the country from Togo,” Mr Asante said.

Revenue mobilisation

A Communications Officer in charge of the ECG Accra East Region, Mary Eshun-Oppong, said the exercise was part of the ongoing revenue mobilisation programme by the company, including checking the integrity of electricity meters.

She explained that the Dodowa District initially undertook the exercise in the area and realised that meters installed in about 40 homes were fake and they were confiscated.

“On our return today, we realised that they have reconnected the power back to their homes and so we have taken the cables down and issued a notice directing them to appear at the ECG office to be taken through the proper process of securing legitimate meters.

“Those who have connected through illegal means will be sanctioned and the appropriate penalties paid,” she said.

Source

The Assembly Member for the Ayi-Mensah/Kweiman Electoral Area, Peter Kudjo Geh, admitted assisting some of the residents to procure the fake meters.

He claimed that the meters were procured from a colleague assembly member but denied any knowledge of it being fake or substandard.

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“I was part of those who helped some of them to secure the meters, and if today they have turned out to be fake, I cannot challenge that.

But we did that to help the community,” he said.

He expressed readiness to assist the ECG and the security agencies to conduct investigations into the matter.  

According to the Ashanti Regional Public Affairs Director, Mr. Erasmus Baidoo, the metres were seized mostly in the Kumasi Metropolis and do not bear the security features that are embossed on the original ECG metres.

Addressing newsmen here, Mr. Baidoo explained that, “there are some illegal activities that customers of ECG have been engaging in over the years, because of that, we set up Revenue Protection Unit with support from the Ghana Police Service and the Attorney General’s Department to intensively work and arrest those people involved in the illegalities.”

He said ECG has been losing a lot of money through the use of some of these fake metres and other illegal activities by recalcitrant customers over the years.

According to Mr. Baidoo, authorities would not settle with just retrieving the meters, but rather, they would refer the matter to the police for further investigations and arrest the culprits and subsequently charge and prosecute them at the court.

Mr. Stephen Taah, the Coordinator of the Revenue Protection Unit, disclosed that, the fake metres which mostly bore names like, “Ciemenz, Ciemans, Ciemens” through their investigations were imported into the country illegally and through that, users of these metres have been stealing power from ECG illegally.

He disclosed that, “currently, six people are facing prosecution at the courts for illegal activities like power stealing, possession of fake meters and others.”

Mr. Ataah warned customers to be cautious of people they deal with when it comes to issues related to electricity as he advised them to deal directly with officials from ECG to avoid unforeseen problem with the law.

Mr.Paul Boakye, a resident of Edwinase, a suburb of Atimatim and culprit of possessing fake meter, when interviewed by The Ghanaian Times, claimed he bought the metre from someone in Kumasi for GH¢300.00, and have been using the metre for seven months now.