The Electricity Company of Ghana(ECG) says it is building dockets on those involved in power theft.
Managing Director of the company, Mr Samuel Dubik Mahama said anyone caught in the act will be put before the newly introduced Utilities Court.
According to him, they will aim for full custodial sentences for people engaging in power theft against the current fine regime, arguing that power theft is theft and should attract equal punishment.
“Now with the Chief Justice helping us with the Utility court which will be sitting on Saturdays, we’re piling up the dockets now. What we just decided to do was to forgive and start afresh because you don’t want stories – this happened, that happened – so we’ve forgiven. This exercise will build the docket to go forward.
“We’ll be charging you for stealing. Why should we use bypass? When you bypassed it where did the thing go? When you bypass something you should have been connecting it somewhere to return it, not so? But the person has stolen; he has consumed it with no intention of paying back,” he said while addressing ECG’s ongoing mass disconnection exercise.
Since Monday, March 20, the Electricity Company of Ghana had embarked on an aggressive revenue mobilization drive as part of efforts to reduce its debt situation, which was affecting operations.
Currently, the ECG is owed GH₵5.7billion by defaulting companies, private and public customers.
This is targeted at every customer owing the ECG and not only state-owned enterprises.
According to Mr Mahama, for consumers who have engaged in illegal connections, disconnections would not be the end of the case as they would be arraigned for prosecution.
He added that the electricity company have a very abled attorney who will be well-resourced to handle such cases.
He’s a seasoned state attorney, a very good lawyer at that. But now we’re at a point where we have to resource the person to bite so that’s where we’ve gotten to as a company because we’ve realized that everybody has decided to take us for a run,” he said.