A 28-year-old owner of a hairdressing salon at Amakom in Kumasi, Akwasi Asiamah, is in the grip of the police for locking up a police officer and personnel from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in his salon.
Mr Asiamah was arrested last Wednesday and is currently in police custody assisting in investigations.
His action followed the attempt by the police officer and the ECG personnel to arrest him for illegal power connection and also owing the company to the tune of over GH¢7,000 as a result of an earlier illegal connection.
Acting General Manager of Public Relations and Communications for the Ashanti Strategic Business Unit of the ECG, Erasmus Kyere Baidoo, said on January 9, 2021, personnel from the ECG visited his salon, ‘On Point Salon’ at Amakom and detected that Mr Asiamah tapped into a single-phase energy metre to connect power to his salon.
He said it was detected that he had consumed power illegally for a period of 12 months which amounted to GH¢7,486.56, that is 6,792 Kwh, and was accordingly billed.
According to Mr Baidoo, after several unsuccessful attempts to get the salon operator to pay the bill, the personnel from the ECG, together with the police, visited his salon again on February 2, 2021, “only to discover that Mr Asiamah had illegally reconnected the salon from a nearby shop and was working.”
Locked up
Having realised what was happening, the ECG officials and the police officer, Mr Baidoo said, confronted the salon operator about his illegal act and threatened to arrest him as it was an offence.
“However, Mr Asiamah, who was angered by the attempt of the police and the personnel from ECG to arrest him, got out of the salon and used two big padlocks to lock them in the salon and left the scene,” Mr Baidoo said.
According to Mr Baidoo, when he locked up the place, Mr Asiamah then went to the Asokwa Police Station to report that some robbers had come to his shop to rob him and gave the number of the police Criminal Investigations Department who was part of the team as a suspect.
“When the number was called, the officer identified himself and asked that Asiamah be detained.
“Asiamah was later transferred from the Asokwa Police Station to the Kumasi Central Police,” Mr Baidoo said.
According to Mr Baidoo, the stranded ECG officials and the police officer had to call for help and waited for a while before another policeman arrived with the key to enable them to get out of the salon.