The Director for Conservation Foundation, Mr Sekyere Osei Yaw, has asserted that the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in the Western Region uses deteriorated machines in treating water for public consumption.
He, therefore, underscored the urgent need for GWCL to replace their treatment machines situated at the Daboase Dam site since it has become weak to facilitate water hygiene.
The Director who made the assertion in a recent interview with Ahoto Fm in Takoradi also bemoaned how illegal mining had become a contributing factor to the water crisis in the Region.
“Unauthorized miners who have taken the law into their own hands and mining illegally have resulted in such mess”, he stated.
However, Mr Mac-Doe Hanyabui, Western Regional Chief Manager of GWCL, affirmed that the weak transmission pipelines continue to pose a major challenge to the provision of water in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis and the Region at large.
He indicated that the Company cannot do continuous pumping of water for a week without having problems on the lines following frequent breakages on them, making it difficult to serve the population well.
Nana Yaw Barima Barnie, Western Regional Public Relations Officer (PRO) of GWCL confirmed the issues of the quality of water and said the quality of the water at the Daboase Head Works and the other treatment plants in the region had deteriorated.
He explained that the turbidity of the raw water required additional treatment, which came at a high cost to the company.
“For instance, our machines often break down, which takes days to be fixed and extra cost in maintaining it because we have to import technicians from Tema,” he said.
He added that sometimes they use forty bags of Aluminum Oxynitride (alon) instead of ten bags to treat the water to make it safe for consumption due to the level of pollution.
