By Stanley Senya
Accra, April 25, GNA – Mr Anthony Bleboo, Director of Electricity and Natural Gas at the Energy Commission has advised Certified Electrical Wiring Practitioners (CEWP), to abstain from all forms of illegal connections.
He said it was a criminal offense to steal power as it could attract a jail term when found guilty.
Mr Bleboo have made the advice at the 18th Certification Awards ceremony, 2023 of the Electrical Wiring Programme organised by the Energy Commission in Accra.
However, 178 students were awarded certificate out of nine hundred applicants, with awardees including inspectors and practitioners.
The Director said electricians must not connive with home or business owners to engage in illegal connectivity since it would cause financial burden to the country.
He said the negative attitude of electricians served as impediments to national development hence, there was the need for CEWPs to be patriotic and report all customers, who sought their services.
“I urge all to stop illegal connection to save cost of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to function efficiently.
“ECG is collaborating with the Judicial Service to introduce a special Utility Court to try power theft cases. All cases of meter tempering, meter by-passes, and direct connections will be treated as theft cases and will be prosecuted as such,” he said
Mr Bleboo said “the home or business owners including the electrical professionals who are found to have undertaken these illegal connections and power thefts will be liable for prosecution.”
He said their CEWP certification could be suspended or withdrawn entirely in addition to a fine or sentence as may be determined by the Courts if found guilty and urged them to work with integrity and be ambassadors for ECG for payments of electricity bills.
Mr Noble Akorttia, the overall best student, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said, he would impact all what he had learnt from the training into others by practising hands-on training for efficient wiring of households and advised other electricians to take part in the training to get certified and add value to their work.
The Electrical Wiring Programme of the Commission over the past 10 years has trained and certified over 14,000 electrical professionals
These professionals are three categories including inspectors, domestic and commercials and industrial.
GNA