PURC Worried Over Abrupt Rationing Of Water

The Public Utilities and Regulatory Commission (PURC) has directed Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and Aqua Vitens Rand (AVRL) to put in place a reliable and effective rationing programme and make it public. The Commission is particularly worried about the current situation in which water is being rationed abruptly without any warning or communication to the public. “We acknowledged that due to the state of Ghana Water Company the issue of water rationing cannot be eliminated completely but they must do well to ensure that when it happens, the public would not be affected adversely. Communicating effectively with the public is very important,” Stephen Adu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PURC stated when he, together with other officials of his outfit, paid a familiarization visit to the Weija Water Treatment Plant and Accra Booster station on Wednesday. Contributing, the Director for Water at PURC, Nii Okai Kotei, instructed the Ghana Water Company and AVRL to ensure that the rationing programme that was meant to provide water during the dry season would be adhered to in order to mitigate the effects of water shortages on consumers. “Consumers expectations were raised with the expansion of Weija and the subsequent transfer of about eight million gallons of water per day via dedicated pipeline to the Accra Terminal Resevoir. An effective and reliable rationing program must therefore be put in place and this must be made public. The Commission would monitor this and insist on the agreed improvement,” he stated. The Director for water at the PURC further asked management of the two entities to accelerate the installation of bulk meters and operations in order to improve efficiency. “The current level of non-revenue water of just over 50 per cent is not acceptable. This is to be brought down to the benchmark of 45 per cent,” Mr Kotei noted. Hadisu Alhassan, Water Quality Manager at the Weija Water Treatment Plant, said treatment of water at the facility was expensive due to the pollution of the water at the upstream. He said treatment at the station was far expensive than at the Kpone station. He blamed the pollution of the water on the ever growing settlement along the banks of the river. The familiarization visits to the Weija Water Treatment Plant and Accra Booster station by PURC officials forms part of the Commission’s monitoring functions. The purpose of the visits is to ascertain the challenges being faced by the Ghana Water Company Limited vis-a-vis efforts being made by the utility to meet the demands of customers. The Commission said the visits would also enable them make follow-ups on issues associated with the rationing programme in areas such as Ashaley Botwe, Adenta, Madina and its environs. The Weija Treatment plant was recently expanded to help transport five million gallons of quality water a day for further distribution to Accra East via the Accra Booster Station at Okponglo which supplies water to communities in eastern parts of Accra, including Adenta, Madina, Pantang, University of Ghana, GIMPA and surrounding areas. The Accra Booster makes it possible to link water supply from the Weija Dam (five million gallons a day) and Kpong (10 million gallons a day) for onward distribution to the eastern parts of Accra which do not have constant water supply. The water from the Kpong Dam and Weija are connected in a way that makes Weija supplement supplies from Kpong.