Africa-Press – Cape verde. A small-scale fire in an electricity network in the Alto da Glória area, Praia, triggered the fire department and Electra’s picket service on Wednesday night. The origin was in the attempt to reconnect clandestine connections that had been dismantled, on the same day, by the energy and water company.
In Alto da Glória, Electra says, the theft amounts to twice the amount of energy legally consumed.
According to statements made on the spot by the head of the technical supervision department and unit to combat losses and debt, Avelino Varela, Electra was in the neighborhood this Wednesday, throughout the day, with two teams, in order to dismantle clandestine connections.
Massive clandestine calls
However, the same night, people made the calls again.
“Massive connections were made to a pole, which ended up overloading the network, and the heating ended up causing a fire, in that pole and in the network, which burned and broke”, he explained.
The picket team was called around 9pm, as were the municipal firefighters.
“Today we came here to make the correction, so that the group of people, very small, with regular and legal connections, do not continue without electricity”, explained the person in charge.
Robbery in Alto da Glória is double the legal calls
In Alto da Glória, according to the same source, the number of people with clandestine connections exceeds twice the number of legal connections.
This causes breakdowns and power outages to be frequent, and residents receive poor quality electricity.
“It is one of the neighborhoods where energy theft predominates, in almost every house. Every time Electra comes here, hundreds of clandestine connections are found, in an area where practically every month we carry out dismantling actions”, he underlined.
This official says that there is no reason for this high rate of theft in the locality, since it is an area with all the infrastructure in place, where residents can request the connection and have energy legally.
Awareness
In this and other neighborhoods, says Avelino Varela, in addition to dismantling clandestine networks, Electra has been raising awareness of the consequences of the theft.
“When someone steals energy, or when we, who are legal customers, don’t report the theft, the bill ends up being for all of us, in many ways. Both in terms of the tariff that we could have cheaper in Cape Verde, as well as the quality of energy that reaches our homes”, he appeals.
In this sense, he says that Electra will start working with community associations, in order to help the company understand the reasons for so many malpractices and to break people’s resistance to legal service, which is even safer.
rogue electricians
Avelino Varela says that there is a group of electricians, many already identified by the Judiciary Police, who have been making clandestine connections, and even selling electricity to people.
In this regard, he said, there are about a dozen cases of electricians who were caught stealing electricity at night and were arrested, with all the material.
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