An unidentified person is said to have plunged Kpone Township, Community 25, among other neighbourhoods whose supply comes from the Smelter Two Bulk Supply Point into darkness on Tuesday, March 7.    

Other affected areas included B5 Plus, Mass Industries, Mavis Industries, Blow-Chem, Ghana Steel, Affordable Housing and Adi Steel among others.

Joy News is learning that the incident which happened around 11:06 pm had customers enjoying optimal power supply only after 12 hours despite frantic efforts by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to restore power immediately to all affected areas.  

Tema Region of ECG through its investigations into the following day - March 8 - came across a rather disturbing sight where someone had attempted to cut its newly laid cables which had power running through them.

At the site, the team found a hacksaw which is believed to have been used to cut the cable.   

For the Tema region, the incident was very unfortunate as it happened a few days after replacing old cables which couldn’t support efficient power supply to the affected areas.

General Manager for ECG Tema Region, Ing. Emmanuel Akinie said the cable which was damaged cable has been worked on and will soon have power running through.

 “As it is now, the cable has been decommissioned as work has to be done on it before it can be energised again”

“However, the load of customers who did not have supply because of this cable cut has been transferred to other networks and are on supply now while we work to fix this cut cable,” he said.

The constant attack on ECG equipment in the Tema region has been a bane and poses a great challenge to efficiency which the power distributor strives for.

Ing. Emmanuel Akinie is therefore pleading with the public to remain watchful in helping protect the equipment of the company.

“Please help protect ECG property and equipment as damages to them such as this cable cut ends up affecting customers who will not have supply, as well as a cost to the company which has to spend resources meant for other projects on such repair and replacement works,” he pleaded.  

Another concern General Manager had was how perilous such acts can be.

“When cables are laid, you may not know whether there is electricity in them or not. In this case, while the person was cutting it, there was an explosion which then caused the outage and the person also bolted, leaving behind a hacksaw,”

“He added that such activities could also cause electrocution as well,” Ing. Akinie cautioned.