Illegal mining continues to deteriorate raw water turbidity and quality in mining areas of Ghana.
According to the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), raw water turbidity has increased from the ideal turbidity quality of 5 Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU) to between 1500 to 3000NTU.
This has increased the cost of treating raw water for millions of Ghanaians. Water treatment plants are intermittently shut down when the level of pollution becomes untreatable to avoid damage to the plant.
The Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Water Company Limited, Stanley Martey says “the activities of illegal miners are bringing serious challenges because the chemicals used to treat the water are costly. The chemicals we use to treat the water are imported. Check the dollar rate now. In 2015 dollar was equivalent to Ghc3.80 but today the dollar is higher but they gave us just a marginal tariff increment”. Stanley Martey lamented.
He continued “Apart from that, the prices of the chemical are also going up but we use a large quantity of the chemicals to treat the water. When you go to some of the treatment plants, let’s say instead of the normal one bag per 1000 cubic meters of water, we are using about 5-6 to 10 times more. The normal circumstance, raw water turbidity must be somehow around 5NTU but now the turbidity of raw water is around 1500NTU to 3000NTU. Sometimes were forced to shut down the treatment plants if the situation gets worse and we cannot do anything about it”. He lamented.
The government has failed to combat illegal mining causing huge destruction to the environment and contaminating water bodies with carcinogenic heavy metals.
Experts have warned that Ghana may import water in the next decades if the menace is not resolved.
GWCL wants stakeholders to be swift in dealing with the menace.
This was revealed at a customer service clinic held in Koforidua by the PURC for customers to interface with utility service providers to help improve services and relationships.
Illegal mining, illegal connections, meter bypass, destruction of service lines, and nonpayment of bills were some of the challenges facing the utility service providers in the region.
The Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) said it resolved 776 out of 866 complaints against both utility service providers and customers between January to August.
Poor quality service, consumer service delivery, billing, metering, payment unlawful disconnection, and damaged property were the topmost categories of complaints received.
662 of the complainants were made against the Electricity Company of Ghana whilst 156 cases were against the Ghana Water Company Limited.
However, the Utility service providers also made 48 complaints against some customers.
The Eastern Regional Manager of PURC, Jude Aduamoah-Addo reiterated the commitment of the commission to ensure quality service and enhanced relationships between customers and utility companies.
Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
