Some unknown individuals have vandalized and stolen essential parts of a 500KVA ground-mounted transformer at the Central Business District in Adum near Old Melcom, in the Ashanti region.

The thieves made away with fuses, cables, distribution pillars and other essential components of the transformer.

This illegal act resulted in a prolonged outage which led to the disruption of business within the Adum Central Business Centre.

According to Mr. Benjamin Obeng Antwi, ECG PRO for Ashanti West Region, the menace of vandalizing ECG installations in the Ashanti Region is on the rise and this is affecting their core mandate to deliver Quality, Reliable and Safe Electricity Services to the good people of Ashanti Region.

“Lately, people have been vandalizing our poles, cables and transformers with the latest being a 500KVA transformer at Adum near the Old Melcom. This is not the first time such a thing has happened as any time we go there to replace a fuse, these individuals go there to steal it”, he said.

According to the ECG PRO, this action has plunged thousands of customers within Adum into darkness but the company was working around the clock to restore power supply to affected customers.

“This illegal act by these individuals has caused customers to experience an outage which is affecting businesses and livelihoods but our Engineers are currently working assiduously to restore power supply to the affected customers before the close of day on Tuesday. We would also want to apologize to customers and businesses affected by this illegal act and urge our customers to help protect ECG installations”, he said

The Ashanti West Regional Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Obeng Antwi, therefore, described the development as unfortunate and urged the public to own ECG installations in their various communities and be vigilant to prevent such theft cases.

“Currently, businesses are affected because once the transformer is vandalized power supply will be curtailed so imagine if there was a hospital there, how will patients survive? If there was a school there, how will students learn? We humbly appeal to the public to help us curb the menace of transformer theft and also setting fires to burn poles.”

“Without the help of our customers and the public, we cannot stop this act, so please let’s be vigilant. Let’s own and protect ECG installations (poles, cables, and transformers) in our respective electoral areas.”

“We have changed a lot of fuses at Adum for a couple of weeks now, and we can’t continue like this. People keep breaking the locks and stealing the fuse. When you see anyone around an ECG pole, please go and ask them if they work at ECG. You can identify the real ECG workers by their overall coats, ID Cards and reflectors. Also, ECG faults and maintenance teams always move in groups or teams and not alone so If you see a single individual around our installation please question them. When they act suspicious please report them to the police,” he urged.