By: Ewoenam Kpodo | Voltaonlinegh.com |
Volta Regional Chief Manager, Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Ing. Joseph A. Nkrumah has disclosed that the company established with the mandate of production and distribution of potable water to customers in urban areas of the country, is 54 years on, “still struggling to realise this dream.”
Ing. Nkrumah said the company has been faced with numerous challenges which pose “serious challenge if the country has to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6)” which is about clean water and sanitation by 2030.
He identified problems including “plant limited capacities, lack of proper maintenance, limited distribution network and inadequate funding for infrastructure” as worsening the situation.
According to him, the region including Oti Region has just “four surface conventional water supply plants” and “operates 13 systems” which are inadequate to supply clean water to every urban community stressing,a lot would have to be invested.
“If we look at the demand and supply gap, one would require more than 200 million US dollars to finance water supply projects in both regions. For instance, if you take Ho Municipality, our current water production is just 2.5 million gallons per day whilst the current demand is estimated at 13.5 million gallons per day, forcing us to ration supply in the municipality.”
“This situation is not limited to only Ho. With the exception of Kpando, we ration supply in all our areas of operation,” he added.
Ing. Nkrumah was addressing participants on Friday at a ceremony in Hohoe to mark this year’s World Water Day held on the theme, “Leaving no one behind”.
The Day which is observed around the world on March 22 every year, highlights the importance of freshwater and advocates for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.
The durbar was preceded by a tree planting exercise at GWCL head works at Hohoe where workers planted about 300 acacia seedlings along the banks of River Dayi (on which the Hohoe water supply plant is based) following an earlier dredging of the river as a means of sustaining the freshwater and ensuring enough raw water all year round.
Ing. Nkrumah said despite the current challenges, “there are plans far advanced at the engineering design stage to construct 3 treatment plants” in the region and appealed to customers such as assemblies, agencies, schools, and hospitals indebted to the company to the tune of Gh¢27.7 million to pay up.
Mankrado of Gbi-Bla, Togbe Vule V in a speech, was grateful that the phenomenon of water pollution by activities of illegal miners was absent from his area.
Togbe Vule pledged on behalf of his people to grow the trees planted by the workers to protect the river and tasked GWCL to maximise their operations in order to reach every household with safe water saying, “water is life”.
Regional Trade Union Congress (TUC) Boss, Elvis Van-Lare called for attitudinal change among the citizenry (customers) and charged workers of GWCL to work hard to advance the company’s cause of making the dream of SDG 6 by 2030 attainable.
Source: www.voltaonlinegh.com