The Ghana Water Company has blamed the frequent power outages (dumsor) in the country for the shortage in supply of water.
Reports indicated that parts Accra West, Tamale and Cape Coast are without water supply for some time now.
Speaking to the issue on Citi FM’s Breakfast show on Thursday, May 9, Director of the Ghana Water Company Dr Clifford Braimah said the major cause of the shortage in supply is electricity.
Explaining the Northern sector aspect of the situation he said electricity and sand winning is responsible for it.
“The equipment was installed 1966, 1966 the company still manages to run it, whether we like it or not the efficiency has dropped drastically, what are we to be doing to make this work?…….there is history to managing the water utility in Ghana but we’ve gotten to a point where the modules will have to change and how do you get it to be changed? our staff need to be worked on, the policymakers need to reorient themselves, a lot of things are happening, for example if you go to Tamale we have a capacity of 45,000 cubic meters a day, just electricity, NEDCO because they are unable to give us adequate power for the last three months we have been doing below 50% of what we can do, we had a dedicated line from Tamale just going into ……. and Awuni, NEDCO has now taken power from that line to Nyapkala………..and surrounding villages but they haven’t increased the load on the line and when the power fluctuates our system do down at a point we were even doing 16,000 cubic meters a day so there is nowhere you can meet the demand of Tamale…”
He said the “power situation is affecting everybody so it’s a common denominator”.
Proposing solutions for the issues, he said the power situation needs to fix, old equipment at the company need to be replaced and new policies put forward to address emerging issues at the company.
“The most pressing for me now is to get regular power supply ones you get regular power supply your customer will not put pressure on you and you can have time to think of developing a solution for the others and the second one is how we renew equipment that dates back to 1958..”
Ghana Water Company utility tariffs
Water tariffs will by July 2019 increased if the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, PURC, grants the proposal of the Ghana Water Company Limited.
The Ghana Water Company Limited has presented a proposal to the PURC for an increment in water tariffs from 0.006 pesewas per litre to 0.022 pesewas per litre.
Explaining the motive behind the proposal, spokesperson at the Ghana Water Company Limited, Stanley Martey said the company needs a cost reflective tariff to pay the company’s loans but if government will pay the bills for the company the new tariff will be at 0.014 pesewas per litre.
Other utility service providers have also proposed an increment in utility tariff at the public hearing on tariff adjustment of the PURC.
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