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Beginning next month October 2017, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Northern Electricity Distribution Company Limited (NEDCo) will refuse to connect electricity to buildings that have not been wired by Certified Electrical Wiring Professionals.

The Energy Commission gave the stern caution at the eighth certificate award graduation held for six-hundred and eighty one (681) certified electrical wiring professionals

The directive is in line with the full implementation of the Ghana Electrical Wiring Regulations 2011, (L.I. 2008) which was passed into law by Parliament in 2012.

Speaking at the graduation, the Principal programmes Officer with the Energy Commission Solomon Sarpong indicated that the initiative is to ensure that dangers including fire outbreaks and electrical shocks that happen in buildings are reduced to the barest minimum.

He indicated that buildings that have been wired by non-certified electricians will still have to be inspected and accented by one of the over five thousand certified wiring professionals across the country before any building will be connected to the National grid.

Mr Sarpong said that a mobile application called the ‘Certified Electricians’ has been designed on the Google Play Store and I store for the citizenry to search for qualified electricians by the click of a button.

“You down load the mobile app certified electricians and when you open it all certified electricians within your area, their numbers, their photo IDs, their PIN will all appear.”

“If you are unsatisfied with the work done, you can report the person with the app and with the same app, you can also rate the person by the kind of work the person is doing so at any time we can assess the work that the person is doing,” he explained.

Mr Sarpong also stated that the Energy Commission has tasked all hotels to do a wiring audit on their facility for a certificate which will be displayed at the entrance of their facilities.

He advised, “Any failure to do this, the names of the hotels will be blacklisted and published in the dailies to warn people not to patronize such facilities”.

The graduation which came off on Tuesday at the auditorium of the Kumasi Technical Institute saw three hundred and seventy nine (379) certified domestic electrical wiring professionals, one hundred and ninety two (192) commercial, fifty six (56) industrial wiring professionals and twenty four (24) certified inspectors, receiving their certificates.

Some of the graduants who spoke to Ultimate News’ Ivan Heathcote – Fumador were optimistic the certificates recieved will help them ply their trade with professionalism and without any infractions against the law.

The Energy Commission was particularly impressed with the attendance of students from Yeji, Edwira, Nkoransah, Kintampo and Atebubu which hither to had no certified wiring professionals.