Mechanised boreholes to serve parts of Accra

Accra, March 11, GNA - The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has drilled 13 boreholes in various parts of Accra to supplement water supplies to areas mostly hit by the current acute water shortage in the city.
Work on six of them at Tantra Hill, Dome and Ashongman was in progress and would be completed in two weeks, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing said on Tuesday.
Alhaji Boniface was addressing journalists at the Meet-The-Press series in Accra to explain the technical hitches that had led to the recent water crisis in the Accra-Tema Metropolitan Area.
He said the recent water crisis was due to power interruptions at Weija at the same time that the Kpong transmission line had been shut down for maintenance and repair of serious leakage.
"To put the situation in perspective when, for instance, there is a five minute power outage, it takes at least five hours to restore water flow. Therefore the impact of these occurrences on water is enormous," he added.
The Minister said other high yielding boreholes were to be mechanized notably in Frafraha and Dodowa to boost supply to Adenta and its environs as immediate measure to improve water supply.
"For areas like Teshie, La, La Polyclinic, Osu, Cantonments, Ridge, Nungua and other vulnerable areas steps are underway to install jumbo water containers in identified areas for direct delivery through tankers.
"Particular locations in these areas have been mapped out for this intervention to begin and will continue for as long as it is required," he said. Mr Boniface said to increase water supply to Accra, work on an additional 15 million gallons per day water treatment plant was currently going on at Weija under the Accra-East-West Interconnection Project to transfer water from Weija to parts of Accra East through the Okponglo reservoir.
He said on completion, the project would improve water supplies to areas such as Legon, East Legon, Dzorwulu, Ashalley Botwe, Madina and its environs.
He said the GWCL was in touch with the Electricity Company of Ghana for dedicated power lines to especially the Weija and Kpong Water Treatment Plants and the Accra and Tema Booster Stations to minimize power interruptions to those facilities.
The programme, he said, would be extended to all major water treatment facilities in the near future and called on the media to assist the ministry to embark on an aggressive education campaign to advise the public on the need for water conservation.
He said currently, demand for water was over 150 million gallons per day, which leaves a deficit of nearly 74 million gallons per day even in the best times, leading to a rationing system in the metropolis to make available some water to residents at various times.