Government asked to abrogate contract of AVRL
Accra, Oct. 13, Ghanadot/GNA - The National Coalition
Against the Privatization of Water (NCAP), on Monday called
on government to “immediately” abrogate the contract of the
Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL), and to hand over water
operations to the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).
The NCAP has also appealed to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO),
to investigate the activities of AVRL because as per their
contract with Ghana, water quality had not improved and the
company had not met the standards set out in its contract
with the government of Ghana.
“Aqua Vitens Rand Limited is not making headway in solving
Ghana’s water supply system. The company has failed to
improve Ghana’s water system since it took over the
management of urban water”, said Al-Hassan Adam, Southern
Sector Coordinator of the NCAP at a press conference in
Accra.
Adam said the position of the NCAP was strengthened by a
recent technical audit, conducted by FiCHTNER, a German
consulting company, undertaken from May to July 2007,
commissioned and paid for by the World Bank as part of the
monitoring process of the Aqua-Vitens Rand management
contract, that made “damming revelations” that constituted
more grounds for the abrogation of the contract.
"We have always maintained, and this has been confirmed by
the report, that management contract is not the solution to
the challenges facing urban water delivery in Ghana and also
that AVRL has so far woefully underperformed under its
contract", NCAP will argue”, Adam said.
Adam said the report specifically indicated that chemical
reagents for treating water against potential health
threatening substances such as; arsenic, lead, cyanide,
copper and zinc were in short supply in most cases and in
some cases not available.
“This is the case for water produced in the mining
communities in Western, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti Regions
where surface and ground waters have been polluted by mining
activities”, he said.
Adam said the report also revealed that regional
laboratories did not give feed back to treatment plants,
hence chemical dosing was done manually with dangers of
inaccuracies.
According to him, the report also said at the Owabi
treatment plant, which supplies water to Kumasi applies
chemical dosing was performed without any criteria and at
the Kpong Old and New treatment plants, dosing pumps do not
work effectively.
Adam said the report concluded that water with high levels
of iron and or manganese was occasionally directly fed into
the distribution system, confirming recent media reports of
stinking water pumped into homes in Osu and it surroundings.
He said the report confirmed that Aqua Vitens Rand Limited
did not carry out regular quality check of water in the
distribution lines, and this amounted to a “reckless
compromise of the public health and safety".
The NCAP also expressed worry over attempts by FiCHTNER to
lower standards for AVRL by recommending that AVRL should
prepare and implement "Operations and Maintenance Management
Plan and Standards Operating Procedures for 10 major supply
schemes, saying, "This is not acceptable to NCAP since AVRL
mandate covers 80 urban water systems."
Adam said the report conceded that the right procedure for
establishing baseline information was not carried out to
determine the actual strength and weakness of GWCL before
entering the management contract.
The “NCAP thinks the lack of baseline information is making
it difficult for any effective management of Aqua Vitens
Rand limited.
"This condition has given AVRL a window of opportunity to
hide its poor performance", Adam said.
He said the report also noted that the management contract
had not changed anything in relation to the operation of the
plants, and that no proof could be found of the presence or
visits of specialized personnel from AVRL, making it
doubtful whether a transfer of technology has taken place.
Adam said “The whole distribution process is handled like a
black box. Only few facts are really known about the
distribution process. The technical figures are derived from
commercial figures, so that the monitoring of physical
losses or optimization of storage capacities can hardly be
achieved", Adam quoted the report as saying.
The NCAP thus said the solution to urban water challenges in
Ghana was investment, comprehensive overhaul of the system
and expansion of infrastructure.
They asked government and donors to view water as a social
service, calling on them to make the water ownership and
management to reflect these characteristics.
Adam called on the Ghana Standards Board and the Public
Utilities Regulatory Commission to ensure that chemical
reagents required for the treatment of water are part of the
water quality standard.
GNA