Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCO) has confirmed Happy FM’s recent reports that at least about 85 percent of homes in Kabonwule in Northern region steal power through illegal connections.
NEDCO, has however, blamed this occurrence on lack of monitoring by the Electricity Distribution Company.
Head of Corporate Communication at NEDCO, Maxwell Kotoka explaining his point revealed to Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show: “NEDCO covers about 64 percent of the land mass and this 64 percent we are talking about is not densely populated. We have to travel long distances to get to the communities and Kabonwule is one of these communities far away from the service centre. One has to drive about twenty minutes from the service centre to Kabonwule and that makes monitoring difficult.”
Giving the context for the motive behind illegal connections in the community, the Head of Corporate Communication made known that the occupation of the people has forced them to succumb to illegal connection activities. He added that, as farmers, they are able to cater for their bills during the harvesting period. Thus, it becomes a tussle when one demands the payment of their outstanding bills.
Speaking on the solution this menace, Maxwell shared that in the past NEDCO with the assistance of security agencies embarked on exercises to ensure that these illegal connections stopped. However, lack of sustainability made the exercise a failure.
He has however assured that “management is reviewing the situation because there are some other cases around.”
“One of the things we can do is to take the service centres closer to them. That will also help. The other thing too is that engineering wise we will bring insulated cables to some of these areas,” he added.
Northern regional correspondent for Happy 98.9FM and e. TV Ghana, Evans Manasseh says the incidence of power theft in the region has become an imminent danger to residents of Kabonwule in the Northern Region.
According to him, individuals in that community can go through the appropriate channels to get light legally, but they choose to tap into the grid illegally. “I honestly thought that there would be an advancement to their lighting system in the past years. Over 80% to 85% of individuals living in that area have their light connected illegally,” he revealed.
