Some Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and public schools in the Northern Region will soon have their water supply disconnected due to non-payment of accumulated debts.
[contextly_sidebar id=”ecFjv99gq3XufBG9LBfPOUP2sv2lEcIR”]The Chairman of the Revenue Mobilization Taskforce of the from the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in the region, Nicholas Nii Abbey told Citi News that all attempts to retrieve the monies has been proved futile.
He added that the company has no option than to cut water supply to the affected institutions or take legal action against them to retrieve their money.
Due to the inability of government to pay utility bills of its institutions, it recently directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to be migrated onto the prepaid meter system to help reduce the financial burden on the government.
Since this directive was issued, the utility companies have been struggling to get the MDAs and some public schools to settle their bills.
Some schools and other institutions have had their electricity disconnected as well as their water supply.
In an interview with Citi News, Mr. Abbey indicated that GWCL has compelled to take this action because the company needs the revenue to fund its operations.
He explained that last year, the government through the Ministry of Finance gave a directive to all utility companies that MMDAs were now to pay their own utility bills and this was based on the 2014/2015 budget preparation. As a result, the Ministry of Financ wrote and told us to go for our water bills from the MMDAs.”
According to him, the GWCL has had consultative meetings with all MMDAs and MDAs as well as all stakeholders.
In addition, Mr. Abbey said his outfit has written several letters informing them about their indebtedness “and the actions we expect them to take to clear those debts and so if you have gotten any report from the Northern Region, it is actually true.”
He added that in April 2015, “we issued final demand notices to all of them to pay. Failure to do so, we will have no option than to disconnect and also use legal means to collect our money.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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