Government owes Ghana Water GHc151.6m

Government’s indebtedness to Ghana Water Company Limited was GHc151.6 million as at the end of 2014.

This came to light at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament hearing yesterday.

The Managing Director of the Company, Fred Lokko said that government's failure to pay the bills was affect­ing the operations of his outfit.

He told PAC that the company implemented its disconnection policy which proved to be effective in collecting their unpaid bills, adding that the exercise forced government's agencies to settle their debts but the govern­ment asked them to stop the exercise.

"We thought we could use the disconnection exercise which was yielding results to get our monies from gov­ernment institutions, but the government stopped us so now our hands are tied," he said, adding that the settle­ment of the debts would help the company to improve its distribution lines.

Another outstanding account balance which stands in the name of the government of Ghana is an amount of GHc2.5 million resulting from crop compensation given to farmers at project sites, land compensation to land­lords, whose lands were acquired for certain projects, water supply improvement project at Burma Camp, as well as counterpart funding for the Urban Water Project, which the government ought to reimburse the company, he indicated.

The managing director also told the committee that the high cost of electricity was negatively affecting the operations of the company.

Chairman of the committee, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu was not happy that the government was owed the compa­ny to the tune of GHc151.6 million as at 2014 even though it has the ability to pay.

He said per the Auditor-General’s report, the govern­ment owed Ghana Water Company an amount of GHc86 million in 2013 and a year later the debts increased to GHc151.6 million.

Mr Agyeman-Manu said the committee will make rec­ommendations for the government to quickly settle its debts to the company to give it some respite.