The Ghana Water Company Limited has raised concerns that the country may be at risk of losing access to clean, treated water in the near future.
Additionally, the company has highlighted the rising costs of water treatment due to the deteriorating state of water bodies, largely caused by illegal mining activities.
Speaking on Joy FM’s “Super Morning Show” on Monday, September 2, 2024, Dr. Clifford Braimah, Managing Director of GWCL, warned that the rising quantities of chemicals required to treat the polluted water are alarming and pose potential health risks to Ghanaians.
Dr. Braimah identified illegal mining as the primary contributor to water pollution and cautioned that if the situation does not improve, the company may be forced to use even more chemicals to treat the water, potentially achieving only 50% to 55% of the desired water quality.
He said, “Unfortunately, to even get this 50% or 55%, you have to use more chemicals—more expensive chemicals—to achieve that. Otherwise, you will not get that percentage.”
Dr. Braimah added that an acceptable level of water losses is 5% or less, however the margin has escalated in recent times. “The process losses that we are supposed to have on our plant should be 5% or less, but now we are having between 35% to 50% process loss.”
He remarked that Ghana could reach a stage where it will no longer have water, saying, “We might not even have water”.
“Our rhetoric needs to go beyond the political jargons to the reality that citizens must take control over their lives. The caution is very critical for us to take up and ensure that we do not continue to pollute, so that we will get to levels that are not tolerable to the system, that can create problems for us,” he said.