27 year-old man jailed for stealing ECG meters

An electrical technician who stole six single-phase prepaid electricity meters belonging to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and sold them has been convicted and sentenced by an Accra circuit court. John Afadi, 27, was convicted on his plea of guilty to eight counts, including interfering with the ECG system and stealing.

He was fined 400 penalty units, representing GH¢4,800 or in default spend two years in hard labour in prison.

The court, presided over by Mrs Afia Agbanu, asked Afadi to pay GH¢2,000 as compensation after hearing the facts of the case.

Fact

Presenting the facts of the case, the Manager of the ECG Prosecution Unit, Mr Paul Assisi Abariga, said the Kasoa North District Technical Officer of ECG alerted the police after he received complaints from some individuals who claimed ECG meters installed in their homes developed faults shortly after it had been installed by Afadi.

He said in a April 2019, Afadi sold and installed a meter to the first victim at a cost of GH¢800 but the victim found that the meter was not working so he contacted Afadi to find out why but he failed to solve the problem.

In the same month, Afadi sold another meter at a cost of GH¢1,000 to the second victim and it was also found to be faulty.

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The third victim also bought a meter from Afadi at GH¢1,060 while Afadi also sold a meter to the fourth victim at the cost of GH¢1,200.

The court heard that when the buyers detected the faults on the meters and contacted Afadi, he failed to fix the problem and avoided their calls.

They reported the matter to the Kasoa North District of the ECG separately and they were told the meters were stolen ones.

On November 23, 2019, Afadi was arrested and when searched, two single-phase meters were found on him.

He was handed over to the Investigation Unit of the ECG in Accra where he was processed and put before the Accra Circuit court