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Sagnarigu, Ghana – The Safety and Technical Audit Manager at the Northern Electricity Distribution Company Limited (NEDCo), Engineer John Yamoah, has bemoaned increasing levels of power theft in the Tamale operations area of the company.
The menace, he said, was gravely affecting quality and efficient power distribution owing to poor revenue generation from the services the company provided to customers.
Power distribution in the Tamale operations area, he pointed out, yielded insignificant revenue to the company compared to other operational areas within the entire NEDCo region which spans over six regions including Bono, Bono East, Ahafo and parts of the Oti Region.
“Tamale is one of the areas the company is supposed to make a lot of revenue, but sadly the company is losing 48% of total revenue every month to power theft whereas the entire NEDCo operational area is losing 45% of total revenue per month.”
Mr. Yamoah said these during a media sensitization seminar organized by the Northern Regional Secretariat of the Ghana Journalists Association in collaboration with the NEDCo at Sagnarigu in the Northern Region.
According to him, there were many investments that needed to be made in order to serve the needs of customers better but due to overwhelming power theft the company was facing, management was unable to make the required investment.
He indicated that, “the total investment budget required for NEDCo to supply quality and reliable power is estimated at US$844.33 million” which was part of a master plan designed to build more bulk distribution stations, sub-stations, transformers as well as rehabilitate and replace old equipment and cables.
“Peak demand has grown by 198.5% over the past 10 years. The network needed to be upgraded to match the demand. Unfortunately, the network has received little investment”, Mr. Yamoah said.
Head of Corporate Communications, Maxwell Kotoka, in an interview with this reporter, admitted that the persistent stealing of power by some customers was indeed making the realization of the company’s master plan less likely.
He however noted that, as part of measures to curb the increasing power theft, the company had resorted to prosecuting persons caught in the act besides its regular disconnection exercises.
The media sensitization meeting brought together journalists and other media practitioners from various media establishments in the North East, Savannah and Northern Regions.
The meeting sought to enable journalists and other media practitioners understand the operational challenges of NEDCo and see how they could assist the power company to do effective advocacy for people especially customers to appreciate their challenges and cooperate with them to deliver quality and efficient service to them.
The Northern Regional Chairman of the GJA, Yakubu Abdul-Majeed, said “the new leadership of the GJA in the region is poised to promote high journalistic standards which would help propel and accelerate development of our communities.”
“This can only be achieved through continuous training and refresher courses for all practitioners in the North. We are therefore mobilizing resources and liaising with other stakeholders within our operational area to offer more of these trainings for our membership,” he added.
Mr. Abdul-Majeed therefore appealed to practitioners in the media industry to play their “watchdog role effectively and efficiently by ensuring that duty bearers provide us nothing but quality service. As we expect service providers such as NEDCo to supply uninterrupted power, it is equally incumbent on us to educate or sensitise the public to live up to their responsibilities.”
By SavannahNewsOnline.Com/Joseph Ziem
