Another burst pipe at McCarthy Hill, volumes of water going waste

The source of the burst shows little water movement, amazingly. But as you move your eyes away and toward where it all leads to, the enormity of the situation becomes all apparent and appalling.

Residents within the block factory are worried, not about the burst, but about the amount of time it’s taking for the broken line to be fixed.

“It’s been close to one month. They only came to check it and left,” a resident told JoyNews.

As can be seen in the attached video, the water streams down towards the Accra-Kasoa highway. A large swathe of the outer lane is filled with copious amounts of water.

The drains are also filled as though it just rained.

Officials of the Ghana Water Company were contacted about the situation weeks ago. They visited days later and have since not returned.

“There’s no sense of urgency, no one cares. How can you leave things to waste this way,” another resident said.

According to water NGO Safe Water Network, more than 40 percent of Ghana’s 25 million people lack access to safe water.

It therefore becomes worrying when you consider the fact so much treated water is being lost in the city when while officials tasked to deal with the situation look on unconcerned.

It is also on record that 30 percent of treated water being distributed through pipelines never reaches homes.

The Ghana Water Company has admitted that it’s running at a loss. However, no matter the loss, the company needs to provide citizens with safe water because water is a basic need.

There is concern that the company cares little about its own financial losses – brought on distributions losses and illegal connections – because the government will invest in the company anyway.

The McCarthy Hill burst is the second in the past few months to have received little or late attention by the Ghana Water Company.