The Ghanaian government has retrieved $1.3 million from illegal power connections in Accra

The Revenue Protection Unit (RPU) of the Accra East Region made the revelation to reporters.

The recovery came from seven districts within the capital city.

The Manager of the RPU of the Accra East Region of the ECG, Mr Jonathan Asante, who made this known to reporters said “the region detected and mainstreamed 4.74 gigawatts (GWh) of energy which would have been lost to illegal connections in 2018”, adding that the energy recovered in gigawatts represented a significant leap from the 1.8GWh retrieved in 2017.

The units retrieved translated into about $1.3 million revenue recovery for the company. A 112.8 per cent increase over the 2017 figure of $591,000.

Out of about 22,445 residential and non-residential customers, the RPU visited, about 813 were surcharged for illegal power connection on their premises.

The Coordinator of the RPU of the Accra East Region, Mr Moses Kutsienyoh who added his voice pointed out that the illegal connections were at the centre of the financial challenges facing the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

“The ECG continues to incur losses from meter tampering, bypasses, unauthorised service connections, self-reconnection, among other things,” he added.

The RPU said it will prosecute any person who engaged in any illegality. It is, therefore, urging the public to cooperate with the company to address the problem of illegality by reporting those who engaged in such acts.