The Accra East Regional Office of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has disconnected illegal water pipelines built by two water suppliers (sellers) at the Adjiringanor-Madina Nsamanpom area, in the Accra North-East District.
The sellers, who operate opposite the “Intelligent Minds International School,” had illegally connected a number of pipelines in addition to their legally connected pipelines.
Mr Paul Akpanya, the Regional Distribution Manager of the Office, said the suppliers, had by their misconduct denied the residents in the operating community and surrounding communities access to good water flow in their homes.
MrAkpanya explained that the Non-Revenue team of the GWCL two weeks ago, discovered around the A & C Shopping Mall area, East Legon, that a water supplier had illegally connected five pipes.
“We disconnected the pipes, invited him to our office, gave him a bill to settle and when he is not able to, we will take him to court. That’s how we do it, we treat it like we treat all illegal connections and bypasses,” he added.
“So we’ve disconnected all illegal ones and left the legal connection for them, which will have a metre to make them pay for the actual volume of water they consume. From today, we can tell you, everybody in this neighborhood will start getting water,” MrAkpanya added.
He explained that the GWCL would need to calculate the total diameter of pipelines illegally fixed in order to calculate the volumes and the loss run by the Company.
The Regional Distribution Manager said the exercise was triggered by constant complaints from residents in Ogbojo and Adjiringanor over their poor and/or no water supply to their homes.
“So we made it a point to find out the reason because we are working very well and supply water according to our management plan, so we didn’t understand why water gets to certain places and not certain places.
“So our investigation made us find out they have connected illegal pipelines to tanks underground. And once their tank is down, it means the water drains down into the tanks and the residents whose poly tanks are on their roofs will never get the water,” he explained.
Those involved in the illegal connection chastised the Water Company for not informing them of the disconnection.
One of them said: “The Water Company should have alerted us they were coming here. We work with them and we are not enemies to them. This demolition exercise will deprive many of our customers of water.”
Some residents expressed joy and satisfaction at the disconnection of the illegal pipes in anticipation that water will flow into their homes afterwards.
GNA
