The Volta and Oti Regional Manager of the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), Mr. Philip Agbezudor, has expressed concern over a cabal smuggling electricity meter from the Republic of Togo to replace those of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in the Ketu-South Municipality.
Mr. Agbezudor explained that the illegal cross border activities had caused ECG to lose revenue, because the foreign meters never read to enable the service provider to calculate the amount of power a customer consumed within a month, resulting in the stealing of power.
The Regional Manager, who was briefing the media in Ho on the activities of the PURC from January to June 2023, said the management of ECG in the Volta Region found it very difficult to arrest the smugglers of the meters, since customers failed to cooperate with the authorities.
Mr. Agbezudor said even though his outfit always ensured that service providers lived up to its responsibilities to ensure quality and regular provision of service by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and ECG, it was equally important for customers to also show greater responsibility by paying their bills promptly.
He said his outfit and the ECG were still observing the smuggling of the meters into the Ketu South Municipality, and called on consumers in the area to help protect the service provider by providing the relevant information that would lead to the arrest of the smugglers.
According to him, the ECG and GWCL should not always be held responsible for shortfalls in the discharge of their duties, because it was clear that individuals and groups of people had conspired to disrupt the activities of the service providers, which caused them to incur huge financial losses.
Mr. Agbezudor said most of the light outs and irregular water supply that customers normally blamed on the ECG and GWCL, were, in most cases, a result of criminals stealing cables, as well as pipelines that supplied power and water to customers in the affected areas.
He said criminals, who steal pipelines and GWCL meters and ECG cables had scrap dealers as their customers, adding that recently in Ho, a man was arrested through the help of a scrap dealer for possessing four GWCL meters, which he tried to sell.
The Regional Manager also blamed the disruptions in water supply in certain parts of the region, particularly Ho, on the activities of contractors, who were engaged in reshaping of the roads, and in the process destroyed pipelines, resulting in cuts in the supply of the social amenities.
He, therefore, advised road contractors to inform officials of the GWCL anytime they were engaged to enable the authority to assign personnel to repair the pipelines whenever they were broken during construction.
