Police arrest electricity cable thief

A 28-year-old man, Osman Razak, was arrested on the Tema Motorway for allegedly stealing Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) underground cables.

Razak was accosted while he was busy digging up the underground cables. He was arrested with a shovel, a mattock and a pickaxe about 4a.m. last Wednesday digging out the cables under the electricity poles near the Tema Motorway.

Information gathered by the police indicated that about 20 electricity poles in the vicinity had been rendered inactive as a result of the act which had also denied residents in the area electricity power supply.

Rampant cable theft

Briefing journalists last Friday, the Deputy Accra Regional Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Timothy Y. Bonga, said the police had for some time now  been receiving information on the rampant theft and destruction of electricity and telephone cables in the Accra metropolis by some unidentified persons.

As a result, he said the Accra Regional Police Command intensified its day and night patrols and detailed its personnel to be extra vigilant in curtailing the menace.

“It was in the course of carrying out our usual patrols on October 21, 2015 that we had information that a man was busily digging under one of the electricity poles on the Tema Motorway,” he said.

Upon arrival at the scene, he said the team met Razak busily digging the underground cable connecting the electricity pole. “He was immediately arrested and the implements he was using were also impounded.”