I am getting increasingly impatient at the sheer wickedness of Aqua Vittens Rand Limited, contract managers for the Ghana Water Company Limited. Consumers have complained about the poor services of this company especially in the area of water treatment and distribution but very little has been achieved in improving on their services so far.
Coming on the back of the recent adjustments in utility tariffs and the demand for improved services by many consumers, it is only reasonable that AVRL comes clear about their plans for improving on water treatment, expansion and distribution of clean pipe-borne water to many rural and urban communities who are currently in dire need of good drinking water.
Not many can afford to feed their homes with bottled mineral or sachet water. Even to those who can afford it, it adds to their daily expenses at home and in their workplaces. In many rural communities, wells and boreholes are the only source of good and healthy drinking water, but can same for Aqua Vittens Rand Limited for their services?
I have noticed that pipe borne water has fallen short of everything close to quality and standards. It is irregular in flow, and terribly dirty. Yes, terribly dirty!
Just store a bucket of pipe borne water overnight and take a good look at the water the next morning.
Rolls of dirt and brownish substances are visible to the naked eye which immediately deters any sane consumer from using the water to wash his/her face or to brush his teeth let alone to dare drinking.
Even if you would use it for anything edible, one has to be sure that it was thoroughly boiled to eliminate an obvious danger it might pose a consumer. I shiver to imagine what one would discover if samples are put to laboratory examination.
Consumers are faced with even worse fate as many of these sachet water companies cannot be physically located via registered addresses, let alone offer themselves to the Food and Drugs Board or the Ghana Health Service and the Ghana Standards Board for routine inspection. Same can be said of the so-called herbal clinics and companies bottling all manner of unknown concoctions for public consumption.
While these unscrupulous businessmen and women are cashing in on the silent boycott for the consumption of AVRL managed pipe borne water at home, at work places, in public events, festivals and funerals, the AVRL seems to be indifferent to this lack of public confidence in their product, knowing too well, that they hold an absolute monopoly over public water management, treatment and distribution in Ghana.
If the AVRL had a conscious as manager of an essential commodity like water, they would have shown that commitment and corporate seriousness to avert the sheer wickedness and treachery they have shown their clients thus far.
Many of the communicable diseases are water borne especially via the consumption of untreated water. We are very helpless as it stands now because, it appears the AVRL has gone to bed on their duties and the laws to check those who exploit consumers are either absent or totally useless in protecting the citizenry.
Adding salt to our injuries is a Consumer Protection Agency that is more obsessed with complex issues of advertisements and telephone bills than the basic things that kill the common man on the streets.
Hon Alban Bagbin and Dr. Hannah Bissiw should wake up to this call and go after AVRL to do the right thing and treat us with dignity and respect while ensuring that a legal framework is developed to deal with the proliferation of all manner of sachet water companies who are worsening our environmental and sanitation problems.
What has it benefitted Ghana for a Minister or Deputy Minister to wake up at five (5) in the morning and drive to a radio or TV station to speak grammar on some useless newspaper publications, instead of using those few hours to either have enough rest to enable him meet the day’s challenges or to get to his office deal with some outstanding pressing need hours before scores of visitors and meetings clog his schedule?
Our public officials should desist from going on these media platforms to engage in endless debates and sit in their offices and work for a better Ghana.
We did not vote for them to speak grammar, but to take the timely actions to hasten our development agenda.
I do not remember the last time I drunk pipe borne water and I am not ready to risk my health in consuming the unclean and unhealthy water dripping down our taps.
It is a disgrace that we have sat down to see our citizens boycott the consumption of water, a basic necessity of life, while we run after sachet and bottled mineral water.
Ghana needs us alive to live our dreams.
Hon. Bagbin and Dr. Bissiw, Minister and Deputy for Housing and Water Resources, should not stand aside and watch while our citizens fall victim to preventable waterborne diseases.
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