The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is warning of imminent water crisis in the Central Region if unrestrained illegal mining (galamsey) continues at the pace it is going – things remain as they are.
Kwasi Abebrese, the Central Regional Manager of the Water Company, has cast the situation as ‘dire’.
The , he says, is struggling to get enough water to extract for treatment to get the taps running.
It is increasingly becoming difficult to extract water for treatment at some of the ’s production plants.
The GWCL Regional Manager spoke of how bad things had gotten at a stakeholder meeting organized by the public utilities regulatory commission in Cape Coast, the Central Regional capital.
In some cases, the is forced to carry out dredging to remove the silt and create room for volumes to build up. “We are not getting enough water to extract for the production process.
Not only that, the muddy nature of the water sources caused by the ‘galamsey’ is also a huge worry as the has been using a lot of chemicals to treat and make the water safe.
What this means is that the has been spending more in treating the in-pure and contaminated.
The muddy nature of the water sources has also resulted where the frequently interrupts its pumping of water to fix – clean the filters.
Mr. Abebrese said instead of continuous 24-hour pumping of water, they end up doing about 12 hours.
He expressed discomfort about what is happening and said if the ‘galamsey’ activity was not tackled the country could very soon be importing water.
Dr. Ismael Ackah, Executive Secretary of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, said there needed to be strong stakeholder engagement to help everybody to appreciate the seriousness of the situation.
The Nana Addo led administration has fought rentlessly to see to the end of the galamsey menance, but no sufficient inroads have been achieved yet.
Content created and supplied by: KyeretwienanaOseiBonsu (via Opera
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