The Ghana Police Service has dismissed claims of power theft and illegal connections at the Osu Police Barracks and the Kumasi Central Police Station.
The Police explained in a statement on Thursday April 20 that the payment of electricity bills is centrally managed and not directly paid for by individual police officers or commands and therefore there is no incentive for the Service or any of its officers to steal electricity as alleged.
Surprised by these allegations of power theft and illegal connections as reported in sections of the media, the statement said, the Police Administration caused investigations to be conducted into the matter.
“Our investigation revealed that at the Osu Barracks, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) disconnected three buildings because they had no electricity meters. A similar situation happened in Kumasi, where one building was disconnected because it didn’t have its dedicated meter, ” the statement said.
It added “Checks from our records indicate that the situation at both the Osu Police Barracks and the Kumasi Central Police Station has existed for some years now.
“Investigation further established that all the connections at the Osu barracks and the Kumasi Central Police Station were done by the ECG directly to the poles since the ECG had indicated that did not have any meters available at the time. In both instances the connections were done by officials of the ECG.”
After the investigation, at the instance of the Inspector-General of Police, a meeting was held with the management of ECG where the outcome of the investigation to the effect that the police had not been involved in illegal connection or power theft was made known to them; which they accepted and expressed regret about the situation, the Police further indicated.
After the investigation, and prior to the meeting, all Police Regional Commands were directed to officially invite and work with ECG officials within their areas of operation to reexamine all existing electricity connections and metering in all Police facilities across the country including the possibility of installing bulk meters instead of individual meters for each building as has been the case over the years.
‘We would therefore like to call on the public to disregard the false claims of power theft and illegal connections levelled against the Police since there is no basis for the allegations,” the stated said.