For over eight months now, the massive Teshie-Nungua Desalination Plant, which was built along the coast to solve water issues, has been completely quiet.
The gates are locked, the machines are silent, and the $126 million facility is sitting idle.
Ghana Water Limited shut down the plant due to unresolved money arguments, high running costs and heavy financial losses.
But while government officials and utility managers debate the debts in comfortable offices, everyday people in Teshie are paying the price with their daily struggle and hard-earned cash.
The shutdown has forced the community into a stressful, expensive daily routine. Even though Ghana Water announced a rationing schedule to share the little water available, residents say their taps have remained dry for weeks.
"We haven't seen a single drop of flowing water in my house for nearly a month," said Naa Adjeley, a trader and mother of three who lives in Teshie.
"Now, we are entirely at the mercy of private water tankers.
I am spending over 300 Cedis every single week just to buy water for cooking, washing, and bathing.
My small business is barely surviving because almost all my profit goes into buying water."
For families with low incomes, spending hundreds of Cedis on water every month is simply not sustainable, forcing many to walk long distances to carry water from unsafe sources.
The root of the problem is a highly controversial business agreement made years ago. Under the contract, the private company running the plant charges Ghana Water about 6.75 Cedis to clean and produce one unit of water.
However, the national utility regulator mandates that Ghana Water can only sell that same unit of water to the public for 1.47 Cedis.
This means Ghana Water was losing 5.28 Cedis on every single unit of water the plant produced. Over time, these massive losses turned into a mountain of debt. Once the government stopped paying bailouts to cover the difference, the plant’s operators had no choice but to turn off the machines.
With pressure mounting from angry residents, local authorities are trying to find quick fixes.
The Municipal Chief Executive for Ledzokuku, Israel Adjetey Otchwemah, recently announced that the assembly plans to drill emergency mechanised boreholes in public schools and health facilities across Teshie to give public institutions some relief.
Meanwhile, Ghana Water officials say they are still holding high-level meetings with the Ministry of Finance to renegotiate the contract and find a way to reopen the plant.
But for the people of Teshie walking the hot streets with empty yellow gallons on their heads, promises of meetings offer very little comfort.
Until the government fixes the money issues and gets the plant running again, their daily, expensive search for basic clean water continues.
The writer is a student of
UNIMAC -IJ
