GHCedis 5000 bounty placed on VRA/NEDco hooligans in Tamale

Source: citifmonline.com  -  The Tamale Metropolitan Security Committee (METSEC) has placed GHC5, 000.00 bounty on the ring leaders of a mob which vandalized properties of the Volta River Authority of the Northern Electricity Distribution Company in Tamale.

The Mayor of Tamale, Abdul Hanan Gundado made the pledge when members of the Metropolitan Security Committee on Monday visited the power installation on a fact finding mission.

As Chairman of the Tamale Metropolitan Security Committee, he condemned the act and implored the police to fast track their investigations and bring the culprits to book.

He thus pleaded with well meaning residents of Tamale to help the police smoke out the miscreants.

“METSEC as a group has placed five thousand cedis down for anybody who will give us information leading to the arrest of these individuals or any of these individuals within town.”

He stated, “we cannot allow this kind of behavior within the Tamale Metropolitan Area and again we also recognize that VRA/NEDco is a very strategic institution and METSEC will do whatever in our power to ensure that we protect this facility: you go about your daily activities freely and to continue to provide power to the chiefs and people of this area.”

“The police together with all the security services will put their ears on the ground to look out and find the people who came out to do that activity last night,” the Tamale Mayor added.

Head of Security of VRA/NEDco, Maxwell Kotoka in his brief narrated, “Somebody moved a little ahead of the mob to hint the security man on duty that there was a mob on its way here by which time the standby team which was attending to exigency and contingency faults had gone out so the gate was not locked though it was closed.”

“Moments after that the crowd appeared and the irony of it was that we ourselves were in darkness we had been affected by the load shedding and so the whole office was off: so taken advantage of the darkness they lined up, spread across the fence and started throwing various implements, stones and sticks and in the course of that they damaged extensively the glass doors and windows of the complaints office, the new service office and sadly a newly established vending point which we commissioned a month ago,” he lamented.

Maxwell Kotoka commended the police for their rapid response.

Public Relations Officer of the Northern Regional Police Command, ASP Ebenezer Tetteh told Citi News the police have launched full scale investigations to arrest the culprits.

“We are grateful that METSEC has given a ransom of five thousand cedis as a bounty to anybody who is going willingly volunteer information leading to the arrest of anybody who was linked to the vandalization yesterday.”

According to him, the mob was advancing towards the VRA/NEDco sub-station at Choggu Hilltop but the police outsmarted them.

“I must say that but for the timely intervention of the police the situation will have been worse and at a point in time we have to dispatch some of our men to GRIDCO because our attention was drawn that mob were moving towards there to vandalize the facility as well.”

ASP Ebenezer Tetteh reassured that the police will continue to protect the VRA/NEDco and other vital installations within the Tamale Metropolitan Area.