Police apprehend 2 women over alleged meter bypass in Edo

Two middle-aged women, Mrs Evelyn Eriamator, and Mrs Bright Isibor were on Friday, arrested by the operatives of the Edo Police Command for allegedly bypassing their prepaid meters in Benin.

The joint team of BEDC staff and police personnel went round the metropolis of the state, looking for offenders.

During the patrol, two women were apprehended by the police while two others ran away.

While addressing journalists shortly after the exercise, the Corporate Communications Officer, Mrs. Evelyn Gbiwen, said the exercise was to make sure that all income comes to the pocket of the company.

Gbiwen revealed that “we just went on a drive to make sure that those people who engage in criminal infractions on BEDC meters are brought to book.

“We did a petition to the Commissioner of Police and within 48 hours he approved.

“We want to keep on arresting these people to serve at a deterrent to those who are engaging in criminal infractions such as bypass illegal connection, load diversion and others.

“The new management of BEDC is not going to take it lightly with any infraction that will result into loss of revenue.

“We have a target to take this company out of the wood within a very, very short time.

“I want to thank the media for joining us in this crusade against those people who keep on stealing our energy.

“Some are stealing for business production without any regard for the losses they are creating for BEDC.

“We want to make sure that whatever energy we sell, the revenue comes to the company not to individual pockets.

“We have just started, over the next few weeks about 14 people will be arrested and prosecuted we have already identified them,” she said.

She added that, “this issue of infractions is not only for customers, our search light is also on our staff, as you can see we have our anti-corruption numbers everywhere for people to call in.

She revealed that the exercise will cut across four states –  Delta, Edo, Ekiti and Ondo.