ANOTHER WATER thief, Divine Amartey, 43, was on Tuesday, this week arrested by the Achimota police after the Ghana Water Company Ltd (GWCL) had found him illegally using the company's treated water to irrigate his onions and okro farms.
Amartey, who is on bail, is expected to be prosecuted at a court from next week. When the commercial manager of the Accra Tema Metropolitan Area (ATMA), Nathaniel O. Badu, took reporters to Dome, where Amartey has his farm, the water hoses the suspect had been using were still lying on the ground.
The size of the farm was estimated to be 300 metres by 100metres and Mr. Badu figured that the farmer could have used 2,000 gallons a day for some ?5 million since he started the farm two years ago.
Amartey who admitted the offence, however, explained that he did not water the plants every day but every other day.
In his narration, Amartey exposed a commercial inspector of the GWCL, Seth Yartey, as an accomplice in the whole illegal connection.
"He collected ?200,000 from me as the fee required and brought a boy wearing GWCL overalls to connect the water from a nearby house to the farm for me."
Yartey, he said, refused to give him a receipt in respect of the ?200,000 explaining that he had kept the receipt at the "office," Amartey claimed.
From then on, he said, the inspector brought him a flat rate of ?30,000 every month which he dutifully paid.
Mr. Badu however explained that receipts shown by the suspect indicated that the pipe from which Amartey picked the water had long been disconnected officially.
Asked how the GWCL would handle the involvement of their own staff, the area Public Relations Officer for ATMA, Eastern and Volta regions, N. Appiah Dadson, assured that when apprehended, Seth Yartey would be handed over to the police.
"And this is without prejudice to any departmental action likely to be taken against him."
Four GWCL officials, three of them, had been dismissed recently, Mr. Dadson said without giving details, assuring the public that the company was doing everything possible to flush out all bad nuts within its fold.
As readers would recall the Kaneshie police picked up one Martin Tetteh for stealing the company's water at Odorkor recently as reported in our July 31 issue and he is now facing trial.
The GWCL says the exercise is part of moves to improve service to genuine customers.
