Illegal electricity connections costing Ghana GHC¢1.3m annually-ACEP

The Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) has raised red flags that agents of state power distribution companies and some political actors are conniving fix illegal meters in homes and it is costing the country a whopping GHC 1.3 million annually in bills.

During a virtual meeting recently, Kodzo Yaotse, the Policy Lead of Petroleum and Conventional Energy at ACEP, described the situation as widespread.

 “We have discovered that agents of the power distributors which includes sub-contractors, service providers and staff who distribute meters among others actively facilitate and even advise consumers on illegal connection and meter tamping for their private gains,” he said.

“Again, politicians were also discovered in the mix where they get the said meters from the Energy Ministry who procure these meters to share and connect households to the grid for electoral gains without the active involvement of the power distributing companies.” 

The country is currently gripped in a power crisis that officials say may last the entire year. Even though the government is refusing to admit the cause of the crisis, industry watchers say it is caused by myriads of things including the government massively owing independent power distributors whose generating capacity would have augmented the faltering national capacity.

The announcement by ACEP is one more reason that has been attributed to the power situation. IN fact, analysts say illegal power connections cost Ghana way more than ACEP is announcing.

 “ECG should immediately take steps to regularize all meters and eliminate the damage once. They must also adopt a whistle-blower mechanism to support the detection of illegal connection in the system,” the ACEP spokesperson suggested.