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| Rot At ECG – Anas Catches Corrupt Officials On Tape |
1/15/2012 |
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Heads will soon roll at the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) where information available to The Mirror indicates that some members of staff and contractors have been caught red-handed in illegal deals in yet-to-be-released video recordings from undercover investigations conducted by ace investigative journalist, Anas Aremyaw Anas.
The investigations by Anas and the team from his Tiger Eye Investigations Company, also exposed about 354 private and state enterprises that had for various reasons failed to settle their electricity bills, totaling about GH¢172 million as of November 2011.
Some ECG employees with tier official identity tags around their necks were clearly seen in the recording engaging in illegal meter sales and receiving money from members of the public who appeared to be desperately in need of electricity billing meters.
Though the official process of single-phased meters range between GH¢80.50 and GH¢92.50, some employees and illegal middle-men popularly known as Goro Boys were spotted in the video selling the same for between GH¢250 and GH¢650 depending on the area where the unlawful transactions took place. And three-phased meters that officially go for between GH¢100 and GH¢170 were being sold between GH¢800 and GH¢1500.
One ECG official who was caught extorting money from a member of the public was heard telling him, “Yes say you want a meter and you brought GH¢50.00 buy? Have you seen a GH¢50.00 meter before? You are not serious.” This particular official succeeded in selling the meter for GH¢500.00 while another officer sold one for GH¢600.00.
The Tiger Eye investigations also uncovered various acts of malfeasance involving not only staff of ECG but some corporate bodies and private individuals who connived with some employees of the ECG to engage in several illegal modes of sabotaging electricity revenue.
These included meter tampering, where some workers at ECG altered the bills (reducing the amount to be paid) for companies and individuals.
Others do what is technically known as bypassing, which is joining two main wires together for power, thus practically stopping the meter from recording the amount of power used for accurate billing.
Source: The Mirror
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