The Ghana Water Company says rehabilitation works at the Weija treatment plant will be completed by Thursday to relieve residents living in areas hit by the water shortage.
The Communications Manger of the Ghana Water Company, Mr. Nana Yaw Barimah revealed this in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show.
“By the close of work today, we hope we will be able to finish the work that we are doing on the 40 inch diameter transmission pipeline at Weija and once we finish it, we will start production.”
The main transmission pipeline that brings water from Weija to Accra has been shut down to pave way for rehabilitation works which was ignited by a burst pipe.
Mr Barimah says the problem will be resolved by the close of Thursday.
He however stated that areas hit by the water shortage will have to wait for sometime before they will get access to water.
This, he said, was because “when you stop production for some time and restart the plant, it takes some time for water to fill all the pipelines to be able to push water to places where water is not able to go, so it will take sometime today before water starts going to peoples home.”
In that regard, he entreated Ghanaians to bear with the problem adding that “it is the nature of water supply everywhere in the world and not only in Ghana.”
The management of GWCL also announced that it will shut down the Kpong Water Treatment Plant, to allow contractors executing the Kpong Intake and Accra Tema Metropolitan Area Rural Rehabilitation and Expansion (ATMA) projects, undertake critical pipeline interconnections under the project.
But Mr. Barimah said the Ghana water company was reviewing the situation to see if it will be possible to reschedule the shut down of the Kpong treatment plant as well, considering the adverse effect it might have on consumers of water.
The two projects that the GWCL is undertaking is expcted to add 12.3 million gallons of water a day to the existing production.
Asked why some areas in the country were struggling to have access to water, he stated that the farther you are away from the distribution point, the less water you receive, or the more difficult it is for you to receive water.
“Even if the GWC does raffling it is still not enough in terms of volumes of water ………this explains why areas such as Taifa, Dome are not able to get water the way they are supposed to….it is not a deliberate intention to deny people of water.”
By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana