Tamale Water Crisis: Arsonists Tamper With Installations– GWCL

The Northern Regional Office of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has blamed the cuts in water supply on what it says are disturbances in its installations.

For some weeks now, residents of communities including Savelugu and Nanton have often been forced to walk long distances in search of water.

The Public Relations Officer of GWCL in the Northern Region, Nicholas Nii Abbey told Citi News the tampering of their installations by some unknown persons has caused a shortfall in their production.

“We have a lot of people tampering with our installations. We set out our installation to be able to do our operation and because people are tampering with them, we find it difficult meeting the target we set for ourselves,” he said.

This follows claims by the Northern Regional office that a debt of 51 million cedis owed it by customers, particularly state institutions, is seriously affecting its operations.

The company had said some state institutions owe it millions of cedis for water supplied them.

It indicated that these financial constraints are largely to blame for the irregular water supply in parts of the region.

Public Relations Officer of the water company, Nicholas Nii Abbey said defaulters would have to settle their debts to keep the company afloat.

“If you look at the indebtedness from customers in the Northern Region, as at February 11, 2019, the level of indebtedness had risen to GHc 51.6 million cedis. That is how much they owe us. When you translate this to the number of months, that is 12 months continuously that the consumers have taken water without pay…If we have all these monies locked up, how do we invest?”

—citinewsroom