Less than 400,000 Ghanaians pay for water

The Acting Managing Director of Ghana Water Company Ltd (GWCL), Mr. Kweku Botwe has disclosed that the company has not more than 400,000 customers paying for the water they consume.

He therefore called on Ghanaians, particularly media personnel to help the Ghana Water Company Ltd (GWCL) resolve the problem of water theft by some unscrupulous consumers.

“People steal the water but because we the staff of the company do not live in all the communities we rely on the public for information. We will create the platform to engage people in confidentiality to provide information.” He said it is necessary for the citizenry to engage each other so that collectively, the issue of water theft could be resolved.

According to him, apart from the existing reward for volunteers who provide information, journalists who devote their time to consumer issues will also be recognised.

The Acting Deputy Managing Director of GWCL, Mr. Daniel Adjetey admitted that the company as a producer is supposed to be blamed for non-revenue water. He explained that based on industrial practice worldwide, the producer should be able to at least account for 80 per cent of water produced, but currently less than 50 percent % is accounted for and is an indictment on their performance and mandate to produce and sell.

However, he said the over 51.7 per cent of non-revenue water does not involve only water that is going to waste and not being paid for, but has many components: commercial and physical.

“The issue of non-revenue water is multifaceted. Of course some of the water produced goes waste due to breakages in construction linkages and leakages from households. Some consumers engage in illegal connections, pump water and not pay for it but sell it to deprive others of their right to have water.” He said the major part is that GWCL has been able to provide sufficient meter bands for everybody to be able to cater for non-revenue water.

He said under normal circumstances; the company should be able to meter most of its customers to improve the non-revenue water situation. But to do that, the company needs about $ 1.4 billion to improve the country’s water system by 2020. Making a presentation on the Assessment of the Urban Water Project, Mr. Adjetey said GWCL is largely not able to attain production target due to lack of funding, vis-a- vis population growth and improved living standards among the urban majority. He recalled that the company went into a five-year management contract with Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL), as part of urban water development project, after several interventions to achieve needed results failed and claimed there have been improvement in water sales due to increase in production and the reduction of non-revenue water.

Since the arrival of AVRL into Ghana’s water management in 2006, civil society organisations have called on the government to as a matter of urgency abrogate the management contract of AVRL.

They argue that the AVRL has totally failed to improve the water situation in the country. The unavailability of water has become a major problem in most parts of the country.

In the metropolitan and urban areas in particular the water shortage has been almost unbearable.

A recent technical audit report, entitled, “Consultants’ Service for Technical Auditor to Measure Management Contact Operator’s Performance”, conducted by German consulting company FiCHTNER from May to July 2007 says water quality has not improved.

It also raised serious doubts over the effectiveness of the operator’s management contract, which, it claimed, “has changed nothing in relation to the operation of the plants.”

With the apparent absence of visits from specialized personnel, the report doubted whether any transfer of technology had taken place, resulting in the use of out-dated and inefficient equipment.

A lack of baseline information was also criticized, rendering it almost impossible to determine the actual strength and weakness of Ghana Water Company Limited prior to the management contract with AVRL, a situation the National Coalition Against Privatization of Water (NCAP) says has given the operator “the opportunity to hide its poor performance.”