GH. Water Blows �1.5m ...On Filtre Repairs In Two Years

Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is set to blow a whooping �950,000 on the repair of faulty filtres the company�s weija Adam Clark Plant after it spent some �600,000 for similar repairs of other filtres in March 2013. Workers have raised concerns at the rate at which the filtres breakdown and the amount of money the company annually pays to a foreign company, Messer�s Ballast Nedam to have them repaired. The workers alleged that infrastructure had collapsed at GWCL under Mr. Kweku Dovlo�s watch, adding that there is nothing to justify the huge resources accruing to the company from the state. Readers would recall that last year the company announced that following the detection of cracks and other structural defects in four of its 12 filter beds, it would ration water for the six months. The defect, according to the Communications Manager at the GUWL, Mr Stanley Martey, required a complete redesigning and reconstruction of the four filter beds; an exercise which would take about six months to complete. The current defect which has resulted in water shortage in some parts of the country will be fixed in the next 11months more, a situation which would certainly bring some discomfort to millions of consumers across the country. Angry workers of the company in a resolution addressed to the Board explained that �Each time the filters break down, for fear of bacteriological breach, a low lift pump is suspended with a resultant daily water loss of 10.8mgd. It is clear to us that our management do not weigh the hardship this drop in production visits on the residents of Accra, else they would have taken the step to select a filter floor design at the Adam Clark Plant that will end the annual crises in water supply from Weija, occasioned by faulty filter bed�. The resolution which was signed by 59 workers among other things, noted that in June 2013, it came to light that, two officers of Accra West Region were involved in a scheme that was used to siphon money from the company�s accounts. They noted that when the issue came to light, a committee was duly instituted to investigate the crime and at the end of their work, they unravelled the total sums illegally taken by these two officers, as close to GHc3.7 million, or 37,000,000 old cedis. According to them, their expectation was that, management was going to initiate steps to recover the said amount from the two employees. �For reasons best known to the Managing Director, upon the receipt of the committee�s report, he decided to terminate the engagement of the two officers, without any further attempt to recover the lost amount�, they noted.