Weija Water crisis, local experts did it after all - Dr Bissiw

Accra, Feb. 11, GNA - The water crisis that hit Accra West recently is finally over, thanks to the ingenuity of local expertise alone, Dr Hannah=

Bissiw, Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing said on Thursday.

"The work on the three pumps were done by Ghanaian experts and we mu= st commend them," Dr Bissiw said and added that government would soon procur= e a diagnostic machine to help local experts to timely and efficiently resolv= e future challenges.

This was against earlier announcement by the Aqua Vitens Rand Limite= d (AVRL) that foreign experts from the Dutch company that installed the control panels would be flown in from South Africa to help repair the machines.

To confirm that the situation has been addressed and water is now flowing to affected areas, the Deputy Minister led a team of journalists to the Weija Treatment Plant and Dansoman, one of the affected areas. The water crisis occurred following the breakdown of three pumping machines at the Weija Water Treatment Plant barely a week ago, which deni= ed portable water to many households in areas such as Dansoman, Mataheko, Kaneshie, Mallam, Sakaman, Odorkor and Bubiashie. As at 1200 hours when the team left the plant site, water production was around 53.1 million gallons a day.

The Deputy Minister later at a briefing expressed the hope that by th= e close of day, the maximum capacity of 54 million would be attained. The water problem reduced drastically the daily water production to about 10 million gallons.

Weija Water Works pump its source of raw water from the Densu River into the treatment plant. 11 Feb. 10