The Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, has charged the Ghana Water Company Limited to install water leakage detection systems to prevent loss of processed water across the country.
He made the comments when he cut the sod for the rehabilitation and expansion of the Sekondi-Takoradi Water Supply System to allow for the plant to produce 22.2 million gallons per day.
Mr. Oafo-Maafo said government has secured funding for the over three-year construction project funded by the Austrian government at the of cost €70 million.
“We have selected the contractor for this project and Parliament has approved both the money and the contractor, so we are on course. It is important for us to note that this project is going to cost us 70 million Euros and we are lucky that the Austrian government has provided funding for it. The contractor, STRABAG AG of Austria, is going to take 40 months to complete the project, thus a little over 3 years. About 42 communities are to benefit from this project and I can assure you that once this project is completed, you are going to be attractive to food processing companies and also mineral processing companies.”
Mr. Osafo-Maafo while calling for sustainable use of water resources urged the Ghana Water Company Limited to install a water leakage detection system.
“Permit me to indicate that while government is committed to living up to its social responsibility by providing such indispensable services to the people of Ghana, it is expected that the beneficiary communities will also contribute their quota towards ensuring the sustainability of the facility by protecting the infrastructure through effective and the regular maintenance.”
“Managing Director of Ghana Water Company, I know you are working on putting in place technical systems to enable you detect as soon as possible when water begins to leak along the line. Technology is available and I know you are working to put them in place. We don’t want a situation when we produce the water, and we lose a lot through leakages openly. It doesn’t speak well of management,” he added.
Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah Sanitation, also speaking at the sod-cutting ceremony said, the rehabilitation and expansion works are within government’s policy to achieve the 2030 UN sustainable goal of potable water access for all.
“I want to stress that it is the policy of this government that by the year 2030 all people living in Ghana will have access to safe potable water which will be in line with the UN sustainable development goals. As we all know, the President is the co-chair of these SDGs. It is proposed that the new 100,000 cubic meters per day conversional water treatment facility will be constructed to meet the current and future requirement of the beneficiary communities up to 2030.“
The Managing Director of Ghana Water Company, Clifford Brimah, said the rehabilitation and construction would help Ghana water company to reduce current rationing in Sekondi-Takoradi.
“The installed capacity of the two plants (Daboase and Inchaban) after rehabilitation in 2004 became 45 thousand cubic meters per day and that is 99.9 million gallons per day. But the current average production due to some activities along the river banks is 30 thousand cubic meters per day. That is 6.6 million gallons, as against demand of 90 thousand cubic meters per day. The projected increase is 200,000 cubic meters per day by 2040. In order to ensure that water is supplied to the majority of the people within the metropolis, GWCL had to rush water supply to selected areas on daily basis. Therefore this project completion would help to reduce the rationing.”
The MD of the Ghana Water Company Limited also gave scope of the rehabilitation and expansion works.
“The works for the Inchaban and Daboase treatment headworks include design and construction of a river bottom ramp/overflow in river Pra downstream of the new intake, which prevents seawater intrusion and provides a balanced stream to abstract the raw water with minimum sediments and suspended solids. It also includes the design of a new conventional water treatment plant (WTP) with two lines, each of which has 100,000m3/day nominal production capacity, complete with aerators, flocculators, sedimentation tanks, filters, chemical dosing system, SCADA System, etc.”
“There would also be the construction of a dedicated overhead power line and substation for the new Daboase Water Treatment Plant as well as the SCADA for the new facilities. There would be the provision of staff accommodation and offices at the treatment site at Daboase. Connection of the new water treatment plant to the existing transmission main (Daboase-Inchaban and Distribution pipeline extensions of 25km of various pipe sizes would also be ensured,” he added.
The Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko Mensah on his part said the project signifies that the government recognizes the region’s water supply challenges and it would help to reduce the water supply hardship to the over 800,000 people within Sekondi-Takoradi and its environs. Officials of the construction firm, STRABAG AG of Austria, assured of their commitment to finishing the project within the expected 40 months period.