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The Eastern Regional Office of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has managed to retrieve GH¢1,052,580 from customers who engaged in illegal connections in 2018.

“Out of the 9,802 meters inspected during our routine exercises in 2018, we detected 98 by-pass, five direct unauthorized service connections and four tampered meters, and in the process, we were able to recover about one million units which were lost due to illegal connections,” Ing Micheal Baah, Regional Manager of ECG, said this during a media encounter in Koforidua over the weekend.

He said apart from the illegal connections, the company still faced the challenge of non-payment of bills by some customers.

Mr. Baah cited cable theft and bush fires which affect electricity distribution poles as major challenges.

“All these negative practices cost the company huge sums of money meant for development of the system,” he said, adding that they are embarking on a project to replace all wooden poles with steel tubular ones in fire-prone areas.

In his earlier address to ECG District Managers in the region, Mr. Baah said the ECG hooked about 26,034 new customers in about 130 communities to the national grid last year under the Self Help Electrification Project (SHEP) and ECG’s Rural Electrification Project (REP).

“The region also earmarked about 110 development projects for last year, and I am happy we have completed the projects. These completed projects include 81 system improvements and extension projects across all 14 operational districts.”

He said currently they are doing system intensification projects in areas like Akim-Oda, Kade, Akwatia, Asamankese and Tafo which are aimed at improving quality and reliability in the region.

Currently, work on the construction of a 2x10MVA 33/11KV primary sub-station at Mpraeso has been completed, and the sub-station would soon be commissioned to cater for the rapid load growth on the Kwahu Ridge and Afram Plains.

Furthermore, he said expansion work is ongoing at the Tafo Bulk Supply Point (BSP) to adequately address the power needs of the people in the region.

“With the expansion of the prepayment metering system, the region increased the number of private prepayment vendoring vending stations from 29 to 85 in 2018. We hope to even expand the pre-payment vending to other parts of the region for easy accessibility.”