The amount represents penalties and surcharges imposed on offending customers - caught using electricity illegally.

They included hotels, cold store and restaurant operators, drinking pubs, media organisations and individuals.

Speaking to the media on the matter, the Acting Revenue Protection Manager, Mr. Sylvester Ofosu Amankwaah, said the types of illegal connections detected involved meter tampering, meter by-pass, illegal self-reconnection and illegal direct connection.

He explained that the Revenue Protection Unit of the ECG during their monitoring exercise, inspected 4,014 meters last year during which they discovered 16 unauthorised service connections, two illegal direct connections, 29 meters tampered with, 176 faulty meters and 111 meters on wrong tariff classes.

Meters that were identified to be on wrong tariff classes were corrected and identified faulty meters replaced, he added.

He added that they were able to recover 1,196,681KWh units of electricity lost through illegal connections.

The total units recovered translated into GHC1,203,878 of, which an amount of GHC 949,116 was retrieved from customers.

The Eastern Regional General Manager, Mr. Michael Baah, said they had initiated series of revenue protection activities aimed at dealing with illegalities in the system and reducing power losses through theft.

"If we are able to reduce commercial losses, we could achieve the system losses benchmark of 20 per cent by the end of 2020," he said.

He warned that it was a crime to steal power, saying, "customers caught in such acts will face the law and if culpable punished".

He encouraged the public to voluntarily report any suspected illegal power connection to the nearest ECG office, adding that, informants would be rewarded.