Over 2,000 workers to lose jobs

A total of 2,020 workers of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) will lose their jobs when the water privatisation process gets underway next year.

Consequently, the company is seriously working towards the creation of alternative job avenues for the affected workers in order to reduce the subsequent social cost, Mr. Emmanuel Nkrumah, Engineer of the Water Sector Restructuring Secretariat, disclosed in Accra at a seminar on ?Private Sector Participation (PSP) in Urban Water?.

According to him, inefficiencies over the years had saddled the company with long-term debt of 300 million dollars and ?100 billion in electricity bills. The GWCL is currently faced with a low urban coverage of 59 percent, deteriorating infrastructure, inadequate maintenance, low cost recovery, poor billing and revenue collection as well as overstaffing.

That, he said, had necessitated the government?s decision to involve the private sector in the running of the sector. Mr. Nkrumah said that the country needed about 1.2 billion dollars for large investments in order to meet the current demand for water.

He explained that under the PSP, GWCL which would own the sector fully, be involved in the production and distribution extensions, the sector planning and approve the monitorable implementation plans of the expatriate company, monitor contract and serviceability of assets and propose changes to tariffs.

The Minister of Workers and Housing, Yaw Barimah, said the business framework for the leasing arrangement of the sector had been completed and the bidding documents were currently being prepared. He said the main features of the restructuring process would soon be explained to the public for their inputs before implementation.