Our lead story yesterday was about thieves having vandalised Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) transformers forming part of its substation A37, located at Lands Commission Roundabout, Sekondi, and siphoned oil from them.
The act by the thieves did not only damage the transformers but also plunged some parts of Sekondi in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis of the Western Region into total darkness on Monday.
At least, three things are significant here.
The ECG and, for that matter, the government, would have to over-stretch its budget to repair the damaged transformers.
Also, the ECG lost revenue that should have accrued from its customers in the affected areas.
Besides, those who needed power for their economic activities within the period electricity supply was disrupted made losses, which can run into unimaginable amounts of cedis.
Then power consumers who needed power for domestic use were denied the opportunity, including all the comforts such as watching television to entertain themselves to reduce stress in an era of unbearable hardship in the country; sleeping under running fans or in air-conditioned environments; and preserving food items in their fridges or deep freezers.
If we can describe all these consequences as losses, the Ghanaian Times was right with its banner headline 'Sabotage!!'.
The dictionary defines sabotage as "the act of deliberately destroying or damaging public or private property.
Regarding the story in question, we can say the
sabotage affects public property, but can we tell how the abrupt cut of power resulted in the damage of private property?
These acts of sabotage are commonplace in the country now and one wonders why offenders mostly get away with these criminal acts.
For instance, some unscrupulous scrap dealers go to the extent of cutting and stealing cables for electricity supply and others for communication purposes.
We cannot ignore the stealing of metal slabs covering certain public openings like drains and gutters across streets.
All these acts of vandalisation and stealing have serious ramifications for the progress of individuals, organisations and the nation at large.
Thus, it has been everyone's wish that these acts can be checked but rather the nation wreckers persist in them and even take them to higher levels in some cases.
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Imagine some thieves even vandalising close-circuit television camera in the bid to deny everyone evidence of their nefarious activities.
What is accounting for these?
Do they have anything to do with ineptitude in the country's security and justice systems, unpatriotic attitude of the citizens to help check these or their fear that they would be given out for subsequent attacks by criminals?
There is the need to research the situation to find out the causes and which solutions can be adopted.
Currently, everything shows that the criminal saboteurs are emboldened because they have found some pores in the whole set-up of the country which they manipulate.
For instance, citizen's arrest is not effective because of some fear surrounding it.
Also, there is no effective system to check people's sources of wealth and nail those who have benefitted from crime.
Moreover, it appears the laws of the country are not applied as they should.
It is time the government brainstormed what can be done to check the lawlessness in the country and thereby stem these acts of sabotage.
