The Tema Regional Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has disclosed that a total of 192 of fuses on its transformers were stolen by miscreants in the Tema South District in October, 2021.
The rampant theft of cables, fuses, and transformers in the Tema Region was worrying as it had become a threat to the Company and also affected effective power supply to customers, Ms Sekyiwaa Mensah, the Public Relations Officer of ECG-Tema has stated
The Tema South District covers Communities one through to six; Industrial area, Tema Newtown, and Bankuman.
Ms Mensah stated at the eighth: “End of Month Stakeholder Engagement and Workers Appreciation Day,” seminar organized by the Tema Ghana News Agency which is a platform rolled-out for state and non-state actors to address national issues.
The event also served as a motivational mechanism to recognize the editorial contribution of reporters towards national development in general and growth and promotion of the Tema GNA as the industrial news hub.
Speaking on the topic: “Fuse and Transformer Theft – Vandalism, Illegal Meter Movement: Its consequences on the ECG Network,” Ms Mensah noted that ECG as well as customers have suffered from the unpatriotic acts.
She pleaded with residents especially those living near the transformers and other ECG installations to serve as first line of security and watch out for thieves and apprehend them.
He added that some of the miscreants went to the extent of removing poles mounted transformers to extract the copper component.
She said “our investigations indicate that the thieves clandestinely put the transformer off at dawn when the community was asleep and then return in the morning with a vehicle purporting to be ECG staff who had been sent to come for the transformer for repairs”.
Ms Mensah therefore advised clients and residents to demand for the Identity Cards of anyone who appears as ECG staff to undertake any activity this will help weed out those evil people from the system.
She said it cost the ECG a lot of money to replace such fuses and transformers, apart from the discomfort it put the customers through, “we must be vigilant enough to check identification cards of people who claim to be staff and if that person is not able to provide that, then there is a need to report them to ECG”.
Touching on power outages, Ms Mensah said ‘it was not their will to put-out power without informing customers, in all schedule outages ECG inform customers especially when we have to undertake maintenance activities’.
She said such periodic maintenance helped to keep the Company’s installation in good condition to ensure that clients received the needed power for their businesses and household usage.
Source: GNA
