Four individuals, including three Ghanaians and a Chinese national, have been apprehended by the police for their involvement in tampering with and installing manipulated metres from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

The suspects, Wisdom Sewlorm, Ernest Afatsawu, Rulian Shan, and Ali Yakubu, are currently under investigation.

Wisdom Sewlorm, an agent for ECG, was entrusted with the installation of the metres.

However, his employee, Ernest Afatsawu, allegedly tampered with the meters and sold them to a Chinese plastic manufacturing firm for GHS1,200.

The firm’s manager, Rulian Shan, and his sales manager, Ali Yakubu, were arrested on Friday, 2 August 2024.

The ECG estimates the financial damage from the tampering to be over GHS77,000 for the period between July and August.

Paul Abariga, the Director responsible for Investigation, Prosecution, and Security at ECG, confirmed that the four individuals will face court on Wednesday.

Additionally, the contract with the ECG contractor involved will be terminated.

“There are metres that are being installed in many parts of our operational area, and there have been some investigations reported to this directorate that some of the meters that are being installed are tampered with before they are installed.

“So we undertook investigations, and we’ve come to realiSe that the intel that we’ve gathered, and the reports given to us, are certainly true," Mr. Abariga explained.

He continued: “Based on that, we got these four people arrested. They had a meter that was supposed to be residential, and they were using it in a factory to manufacture plastic bowls at Oblogo near Weija.

“So we want to put all the four together. By the end of the day, we would have finished our investigations on them so that we put them before court tomorrow.”