The Managing Director of Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) Engineer Clifford Briamah has indicated that the company is likely to shut down its operations if the turbidity of the water crosses a certain threshes hold as a result of galamsey activities.
He commented on a working visit to the Eastern region by the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources to have a dialogue with opinion leaders on the state of the Birim river and its impact on the Ghana Water Company Limited in the Atiwa West District.
According to the MD of GWCL, the fight against galamsey is a national issue but the Ghana Water Company Limited has been hit the most so while the government is doing its bit to fight the menace with the regulatory agencies as well as the security agencies, it is imperative for the GWCL to also meet critical stakeholders in the respective water treatment plant areas which have been affected by the polluted water bodies to solicit for their collaboration towards fighting the menace.
“Am not a happy person, but I pray that the security, the regulators, and the President admonishing the MMDCEs will help reduce the problems, at the end of it if nothing changes it will mean that our system might not be able to operate because our pumps are not designed to pump silts they are designed to pump fresh water so when the water turns like silt then we have to shut down and if shutdown meaning people will not even get water and now that the water is so dirty they cannot even go to the river to fetch to do anything so it becomes a national security issue so that is why people must take this issue more seriously?” he said
“This galamsey is a national issue and the President has already spoken to the DCE’s , the MMDCE’s , he has spoken with the chiefs and are expecting that people will abide by the directives by the President but for the impact on the GWCL no one should even tell us , it is so huge and fortunately we have a regulator if your cost is high you cannot like any business transfer your cost onto the consumer, you would have to wait sometimes two years now they are looking at every three months quarterly review and if they do that then it will be better else you are going to keep this cost for over two years before you get another review , what it means is that at any giving time we are making loses and also the amount of water we can pump to customers would have reduced because there is process lose and we expect to have a process loses of 5% , any 100 litres of water that we take we expect that 95 litres will go to the customers but in some of these cases we do 50% process loses so instead of having 95 to send to the customers we have only 50 to send so the 45 litres that other would have consumed , they are not going to have it and we continue to do what we call ‘demand management’ in such that we push it today to one side and tomorrow we push it to the other side and if we don’t reduce it , that’s what will continue and the population is increasing as long as we continue to give birth our population will go up and so we must be very cautious about the future of this country whilst we carry on some of these activities” he explained.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources also the MP for Sisala East, Hon. Hamidu Chinnia Issahaku bemoans that the cost of treating water has gone up by six times as a result of the destruction caused by illegal mining to our water bodies making it difficult for the GWCL to extend water to many communities.
“The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is in distress position because of some of these activities so we need to collaborate with the chiefs, and the security agencies to ensure how we can minimize some of these activities to protect our water bodies,
We did not come here to observe things and go and sleep, we are here to observe and to talk to stakeholders and when we get back to the ministry we will have an internal engagement and decide on the way forward and make a policy decision”
The deputy minister admitted that certain decisions made in the past by the ministry have not been effective enough to resolve the issues hence such decisions are going to be reviewed and come out with a concrete decision to ameliorate the problem.
On the other hand, the chief of Osino Osabarima Otu Darko said he is not against mining but rather he is against illegal or irresponsible mining therefore in total support of the government’s effort to fight illegal mining activities which are destroying our water bodies.
He however argued that the fight against galamsey has been difficult for the government because chiefs were sidelined.
He berated blame on the chiefs saying, the government is the one who gives concessions to the miners therefore the chiefs have no hand in any mining activities in Ghana.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
