The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) cannot operate efficiently without the total resources it requires to finance its operations. The now intractable problem of high indebtedness of public sector organizations to the utility is putting a serious strain on the operations of the company.
The Coordinator of the Tax Justice Coalition Ghana, Bernard Anaba has also called on the Government to pay its water bills. He said the debts will lead to poor services to people and communities if the Government does not pay what it owes to Ghana Water Company Limited. The debt situation, he said, also affects quality of water because the company needs to buy the required and proper consumables for production.
The Association of Small Towns Water Supply Systems-Ghana is reported by The Herald to have said it would not heed the Government of Ghana’s directive to supply free water to the general public, as part of efforts to ease the suffering of citizens, amidst the outbreak of the novel COVID-19 pandemic. Though the frustration of the Association is justifiable the approach adopted by them to remedy the situation will rather hurt the already suffering people and communities. The preferred approach will be to join forces with fellow citizens to demand of Government to pay its water bills. The paper reported that;
It is very refreshing to see Government spending tax monies on the social needs of Ghanaians, after all that is why people pay taxes to ensure they have access to security and commonly used products such as healthcare, education and water supply.
Some people appear to be celebrating too early. This is a good outcome but does not deserve the celebrations and pats on the back seen in the Ghanaweb story below. It is not yet Uhuru. In the era of COVID-19, household water connections should be the new measure of success. Just about six years ago, urban water connections inside dwelling was about 15.7% and 11.4% outside dwelling but on compound. (Ghana Living Standards Survey, 2014:91)
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