Accra, June 6, GNA - The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) lost about five billion cedis over a 10-month period through the stealing of cables, underground and overhead conductors during the load shedding periods. Mr. Andrew Barfour, Director of Operations of ECG, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency on Wednesday, said Tema and Accra West were the most affected areas where the theft occurred weekly. He said Ashanti Region lost 1.4 billion cedis last year through underground cable theft.

Mr. Barfour said replacement of stolen items had caused huge financial loss to ECG and inconvenience to customers. "Instead of expanding our network we are rather spending huge sums of money replacing these cables and conductors. It's a burden on the ECG and the affected communities," he said.

He said as a measure to control the situation, the Customs, Exercise and Preventive Service had been alerted to make sure that these stolen cables were not exported as scrap. Some of the cable thieves had been jailed whilst others were under investigation, he added.

He called on all communities to form watchdog committees to help ECG apprehend these culprits.