Correspondence from Eastern Region

Another high-tension pole belonging to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) that transmits power to some areas in the Yilo Krobo and Okere Districts in the Eastern Region has come under attack.

It was discovered on Friday, November 11, 2022, at Adelakope in the Yilo Manya Krobo Municipality on the Tema-Akosombo highway that another pole, next to an earlier one cut down in August this year, was sawn into two with the disjointed pole still standing.

It appeared the culprit/s used a logging machine to engage in the act.
The affected line supplies power to Adelakope, Akorley, and Adukrom water pumping stations amongst others.

The earlier incident was perpetrated during the peak of the impasse between the power company and its Krobo customers over the installation of prepaid meters in the area. It’s unclear if the latest discovery is linked to the impasse as the ongoing prepaid metering exercise nears its final stages.

The Company had earlier attributed the actions to "unscrupulous people".
The attention of personnel of the (ECG) from Somanya who were on routine maintenance works at nearby Asutuare junction on Friday was drawn to the damage by some nearby construction workers who noticed the anomaly.

The team reported the incident to its Somanya office before proceeding to the scene on Saturday to replace the pole.

Though it's not clear exactly when the act was committed, the latest discovery comes precisely three months after a pole right next to the current incident was similarly cut to the ground by unknown persons.

The team spent close to two hours on the scene as they excavated a six-foot deep hole into which a new pole was lodged to hold the cables to avert a possible interruption in the network.

Assemblyman for Akorley Electoral Area, Honourable Seth Kwesi Tetteh who was on the scene, disagreed that the perpetrator/s could possibly be from the community.

He opined in an interview after the exercise that the bushy surroundings around the poles could provide cover for the perpetrators to hide behind to undertake their nefarious activities and suggested that the power distributors take urgent steps to clear the shrubs.

“We come together with the ECG If we can organize the communities around so that you see that there’s a bushy [space] between the pole and the road if we can come together and clear it so that the place will be cleared so that if someone is passing and even someone is doing something by the pole you can see it,” he advocated.

He assured that the community, in collaboration with the police was going to keep vigilant over the area to avert a repetition of the incident.