Two people have been arraigned and brought before an Accra Circuit Court for selling unlicensed Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) metres to unwary power distributor customers.
Charles Kotei, 42, a mason, and Frank Ofori, 43, a carpenter, both of Accra, are charged with conspiracy to conduct crime and purposefully interfering or knowingly enabling interference with the power supplier’s distribution system.
They both pleaded not guilty to the two accusations and were granted bail of GH20,000 each with two sureties by the court presided over by His Honour Bright Samuel Acquah, with a reappearance scheduled for December 8, 2023.
According to the prosecution’s evidence submitted by Paul Assibi Abariga, General Manager of ECG Prosecutions, the to’s actions were noticed during a monitoring exercise by ECG personnel.
According to the report, Ankudey Rocky and Affordofe Belinda Kafui, both ECG technicians, were on duty examining ECG metres at the Adenta New facility and its vicinity when they discovered that part of the implanted metres were unapproved.
According to the facts, their investigations found that Frank Ofori provided all of the illegal metres.
According to the report, two ECG personnel went to Frank Ofori and pretended to be national service members in need of a new metre for their rented flat.
The accused assured the two that he could obtain the metre for GH1,200, and on September 28, 2023, the two ECG officials, together with police officers, went to the accused’s residence with the aim of acquiring the metre.
Frank Ofori was detained after bringing out a metre with serial number 191499941 labelled ‘property of Ministry of Energy’ to sell to them.
He informed the police in his investigative caution statement that Charles Kotei gave him 40 such metres to sell between November and December 2022, and he had since sold all except one.
This resulted in the arrest of Charles Kotei, who also informed the police that he obtained the metres from Foli Atigah, a resident of Nsawam in the East Region, but he was unable to bring the police to the said man for arrest.