GWCL to shut down Booster Station

Page 3 (lead) August 21/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

PARTS of Accra will be hit by an acute shortage of water for 10 days following the decision by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to shut down its main Booster Station for major replacement works.
According to the GWCL, the station which supplies potable water to most parts of Accra will be shut down next Tuesday and will remain so for 10 days.
“For the duration of the shut down, water supply will be disrupted in Legon, Dome, part of Achimota, Taifa, Kwabenya, Ashalley-Botwe, Madina, Adjiriganno, East Legon, Ashongman, Adenta, Nima, Kotobaabi, Labone, Cantonments and sorrounding areas,” the company confirmed.
The move, the first in many decades, is to pave the way for contractors of the company to replace the pumps with higher capacity ones to effectively distribute additional water to be received from the Weija plant, which has been expanded to increase water supply to Accra.
Upon completion, water supply to Accra will increase by an additional 15 million gallons per day from the present level of 40 million gallons per day and is expected to drastically ease the perennial water shortages that has hit the urban parts of the region for many years.
The Daily Graphic gathered that Aqua Vitens Rand Limited, operators of the water systems in the country, and the GWCL are feverishly working together to minimise the impact on people living in the affected areas.
To this end, the two companies are mobilising 40 water tankers to provide special services to the affected areas while special services would be given to institutions such as the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), University of Ghana, Legon and its hostels, as well as the Achimota and Legon hospitals.
Ten existing tanker filling stations are also to be used while six others are also to be identified and erected by Ballast Nedam, the company working on the project.
As part of the scope of works on the project, three new pumps for the medium pressure zone, as well as three new pumps for the high pressure zone, would be installed.
As part of efforts by the government to ease the water problems in the region, funds were sought to construct another intake point at the Weija Water Works to increase the capacity of the plant to meet the growing demand for water, as well as serve newly developed areas that have not seen potable water through their taps for decades.
Further north, a crisis meeting has been held in Tamale, chaired by the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mustapha Ali Iddris, at which an assessment team, which monitored last year's flood disaster, was revived with the mandate of moving to the high-risk communities to assess the levels of vulnerability, as well as identify how to relocated and give relief to humans and livestock in those areas should the flooding occur, reports Salifu Mohammed Nurudeen, Tamale.
The team comprised representatives of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Ghana Health Service, Ghana Red Cross, Ghana Airforce, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), Information Services Department (ISD) and Social Welfare Department.
The rest are the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme, Care International, Assemblies of God Relief and Development Service (AGREDS) and World Vision International.
The team is to visit communities, namely Nawuni-Daboya, Kukuobila-Kpasenkpe, Saboba, Gushegu/Karaga and Bunkpurugu in five different groups after which they would present their report at the next meeting of all the stakeholders,
"We expect the team to also give us detailed information on how many and worth of structures, such as schools and houses, that may be affected, so that we can plan better," Alhaji Iddris told the press.
He said the biggest challenge so far was how to convince the settlers of riverbanks to move inland. Meanwhile, stakehodlers at the meeting consented that a crisis centre would be set up to receive, collate and disseminate appropriate and timely information regarding the crisis and also serve as a centre of co-ordination for all the various bodies involved.
It was also proposed that a task force be put together with the duty of ensuring that people around the riverbanks relocated immediately.
"The task force should be empowered to forcefully relocate people as and when it becomes necessary, in order to avert any human disaster," suggested the Senior Programmes Office of AGREDS-Ghana, Mr Theophilus Ibrahim Dokurugu.
He also recommended that aqua-disinfectant tablets be made available, to redistributed to people in the affected communities in case of a flood.
"This would help us prevent the outbreak of water-borne diseases, which is usually the case when people rely on contaminated water during floods," Mr Dokurugu added.
Again, the Minister requested all aid agencies, including NADMO and the Ministry of the Interior, to begin to assemble relief items, which would be stockpiled at the Regional Co-ordinating Council.
The expected flooding is the result of the increase in water levels of the Volta Lake, which is caused by an increase in rains and compounded by excess water flowing from neighbouring Burkina Faso, due to the opening of the Bagre dam.
Human activity around the Volta Lake is also causing the rise in the water level, as sand from farms is washed into the rivers, thereby reducing their depth.