Last year, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) recovered six gigawatt hours (GWh) of stolen electricity worth GH3.2 million in the Accra West Region.
The sum is GH700,000 more than the four GWh recovered in 2020 for GH2.5 million.
"What this implies is that we identified the perpetrators, assessed how much electricity they consumed, and invoiced and paid them appropriately." The ECG's Accra West Regional Manager, Ebenezer Ghunney, informed the Daily Graphic that these are punitive penalties that include the cost of electricity utilized and administrative costs.
Personalized visits
With a subscriber base of almost 600,000, the region includes the ECG districts of Ablekuma, Bortianor, Achimota, Dansoman, Korle Bu, Nsawam, Kaneshie, and Amasaman.
Mr Ghunney stated that in 2021, a team from the region conducted 13,000 targeted visits, the bulk of which were deemed to be unlawful in nature.
Meter bypasses, meter manipulation, and reconnection without consulting the ECG were among the illegalities.
"The chances of you getting people involved in criminal activities are low if you don't perform targeted visits," he stated.
According to the Accra West Regional Manager, the organization used a variety of measures to discover illicit activity that resulted in revenue losses.
Mr Ghunney explained that one of the measures was a "non-purchase" plan for prepaid clients, in which "we go into our system to verify those who have not bought power for some time already."
"Once such individuals have been identified, we pay them a visit to see why they aren't coming to acquire credit," he stated.
Customers may have truly traveled in some situations, according to the regional manager, but "those non-purchases turn out to be folks who have engaged in illegalities" in the majority of cases.
Types
Mr Ghunney stated that the business had just acquired new smart meters, seven of which had been put at Achimota. He said the meters were equipped with technology that would alert the company's control system if they were tampered with.
"We installed seven and discovered five had been tampered with within two weeks, so we went out and attacked those guys," he claimed.
Mr Ghunney acknowledged that the ECG would require more of these meters to detect unlawful activity.
He said the Millennium Development Authority was aiding ECG with a Meter Management System Project, which would combine data from all smart meters into a single system and then be monitored.
"With such a project, there would be no need for a human visit since the meters would be communicating with the system and we would receive warnings if there is tampering or anything that the meter deems unusual," he added.
Looking at the client base and an increase in sophisticated power theft, Mr Ghunney noted that the corporation was completely adopting technology because depending on personal visits was onerous.