Customers pay for illegal water consumers - GWCL Boss
The Managing Director of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Dr Clifford Abdallah Braimah has urged the public to report illegal water connections in order help reduce their own water bills.
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According to him, persons who pay their water bills, in the long run, end up paying for persons who don't because such illegal connections affect the cost of producing potable water.
"If all of us will do the right thing including the customers. I keep saying that, if you have your neighbour who does not pay for water and then you are paying, you should be sure that when I am calculating the tariff, I would calculate his charge on you and so you will be paying for him," Dr Braimah said on the sidelines of a presentation by officials of Electrolytic Technologies, on Wednesday in Accra.
"It is our duty and responsibility to expose whoever is drinking water illegally because somebody else is paying for the person and that is that kind of education that needs to go round for people to know that it's not Ghana Water Company that you are doing."
"You are doing yourself because if you know somebody who is illegally tapping our water and you just keep quiet, you are not only being a bad citizen but you are paying more for neglect," Dr Braimah said.
Reducing GWCL cost of operations
Dr Braimah disclosed that the GWCL was constantly exploring avenues to reduce the cost of operations which currently stands at Ghc27 per cubic metre of potable water produced.
"Our cost reflective tariff as we stand here, is about Ghc27 per cubic metre but we are charging an average of about Ghc 6 per cubic metre. It tells you the difference between 27 and 6."
He said the GWCL had requested a proposal from Electrolytic Energy after the company explained a technology which can convert salt into Chlorine and thereby reduce his outfit's cost of operations.
Electrolytic Technologies
Electrolytic Technologies is a US based company that manufacture chlorine.
Touching on the presentation, Dr Braimah said they have a technology that is supposed to convert salt into Chlorine and other products that are useful in water production for either GWCL or industrial use in Ghana.
"This is a relationship that involves money and so we will have to look at the document that they will present before deciding whether it is something that we can work with because we are looking for ways to reduce our cost of production which will also reduce tariffs".
Cycle of debt
He said although the GWCL was not running at a loss, their high production costs and a cycle of debt involving government, the Electricity Company of Ghana and its customers was affecting their operations.
"Nobody says we are running at a loss but because of the cost-reflective tariff we owe the government, we owe Electricity Company and we owe other suppliers and so everybody owes everybody...
"It's not about me, it's about the country, Because I owe, the government owes me and another person owes Ghana Water Company and so it's just there are internal things that we can control while others are external".
On-site chlorine production
The President of Electrolytic Technologies LLC, Mr Derek Lubie said his outfit was offering a smaller-scale electrochemical system called the Klorigen M-Series On-Site Generator, which is specifically intended for remote applications and designed for safe and cost effective production of chlorine gas and/or high purity, commercial-strength sodium hypochlorite solution.
"We would like to be evaluated on the same level as other companies who are selling the same products, we believe that our technology is extremely well suited for the Ghana Water Company and we have explained it to them," Mr Lubie said.