Correspondence from Northern Region

John Okine Yamoah, the Acting Managing Director of the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), has revealed that five out of every ten houses in the Northern Area (Northern Region) are likely to be involved in power theft.

He said most of these illegal power connections were found in the Tamale Metropolis and Yendi Municipality.

According to Okine Yamoah, NEDCo loses 45 percent of the power it distributes every month in the Northern Region, with about 70 to 80 percent of these losses attributed to illegal connections.

“Not all of our 45% power distribution loss is due to power theft, but the majority of it is. I can estimate that about 70 to 80% of our losses [in the Northern Region] are from power theft. If we select ten houses, there’s a likelihood that five or six of them will be involved in power theft,” the Acting Managing Director told journalists in Tamale on Tuesday.

He stated that by the end of last year, NEDCo had lost 45.9 percent of the power it distributed, lamenting that “no businessman can sustain his business with this kind of loss.”

Okine Yamoah stressed that the percentage was alarming compared to other operational areas, where they lose at most 29 percent.

“In the Northern Area now, we are losing about 45 percent of the power we distribute every month, and that’s a big challenge for us. In all the other areas where we operate—Sunyani, Techiman, Bolgatanga, and Wa—the losses are within a certain limit.

"Apart from the Upper East Region, where losses went up to 29 percent last year due to the conflict in Bawku—which has hindered our ability to monitor meters and conduct necessary checks—Sunyani, Techiman, and the Upper West Region are all operating within 20 to 21 percent loss.

"Our regulators, the PURC, in setting tariffs for us, allow for a distribution loss of 21.4 percent. So if we operate within 20 or 21 percent, it means we are within the benchmark given to us by our regulators,” he explained.

The Northern Electricity Distribution Company has consistently raised concerns over the high rate of illegal power connections in the Northern Region, which it says results in millions of dollars in losses.

The newly appointed Acting Managing Director said that as part of efforts to find a permanent solution to the problem, the company is adopting new strategies, including setting up zonal Loss Control Units in the Tamale Metropolis and conducting night operations to clamp down on illegal connections.

He hinted, “Currently, we have only one loss control team managing all the zones, which makes it difficult for them to achieve the desired results. Going forward, we are implementing a plan to assign a dedicated loss control team to each of the 11 zones. Their job will be to monitor their assigned areas daily, and over time, we will even conduct nighttime operations.

“This will ensure that our presence in the network is constant so that whenever something goes wrong, we can detect it immediately.”

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