THE Suame District Police Command is searching for a man suspected to have illegally connected water to his premises at Abrepo Junction in Kumasi, since 2007.
Officers of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) who chanced on the illegal connection have on several occasions disconnected the pipe lines, but the suspect has, on each occasion, reconnected without recourse to paying any reconnection fee or water bills.
So far, the suspect, identified as Isaac Osei who, according to the GWCL officials, described himself as a Security man operating at a sensitive part in Kumasi, has accumulated Gh¢2,200 in bills and efforts to retrieve the money from him have proved futile.
Last Friday, the GWCL officials went to his house once again to disconnect the pipeline he had connected illegally and Police officials who accompanied them to effect his arrest were disappointed because the suspect once again eluded them.
The Ashanti Regional Manager of GWCL, Mr Boakye Frimpong, who briefed the media after the disconnection exercise, expressed concern about the attitude of the suspect, saying the company extended an olive branch to the suspect to “come forward for free regularisation of their service but he refused.”
“We were hoping that people will seize the opportunity, but we still have offenders who do not want to pay for water used,” he complained.
Mr Frimpong explained that the activities of the suspect came to public domain in 2007, when one of their meter readers “discovered that he had illegally connected our water to his premises at Abrepo Junction and disconnected him and left a message for him to report at our North District Office.”
He said the suspect did not only fail to respond “but instead reconnected the line without approval.”
He explained that the situation continued for five times “and anytime we disconnected the line, he reconnects. This happened in June 2007, October 2007, April 2008, August 2009 and November 2009.”
According to Mr Frimpong, it was such attitude displayed by the suspect that compelled the District Office to report his action to the Loss Control team who “went to disconnect the pipelines and served him a letter to come to the Regional Office, but this time too, he refused and again reconnected the line.”
He said it was after all efforts to get the suspect to use the appropriate channels had failed that they resorted to effect his arrest to retrieve the money owed the company.
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