Filthy stinky tap water discovered in more areas

Accra, Sept. 12, GNA - Following media reports of dirty stinky water flowing from taps in some communities at La, a top official at Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL) of the Ghana Water Company, on Friday said they have found similar problems in more communities in Accra.

Mr Stanley Martey, Communications Director of AVRL said investigations by a team of laboratory leakage and maintenance staffs have detected similar problems around the La General Hospital, Osu and further toward Accra central.

"But I can tell you for a fact that the problem is not from our treatment plant. We suspect a broken line on the service line that serves those communities but we have not identified it yet," he said. Mr Martey said from the direction the problem was moving, they suspected that the bad water could be coming from the Korle Lagoon at Korlegono but added "but we cannot move straight to that area. We need to trace the root of the bad water to ascertain the enormity of the problem".

He assured the public that the AVRL was leaving no stone unturned and would comb every community within 100 meters interval, adding that as they moved on towards Accra Central, the characteristics of the filthy water samples they took changed.

"What we have found is that in the afternoon as people fetch more water the clean water flashes out the dirty water, but in the evenings and early mornings the bad water settles and run through the taps," he said.

Mr Martey, therefore, called on residents of communities where samples of the bad water had been taken not to fetch water from their taps else their water meters would read and they would be billed at the end of the month.

He said AVRL would increase their tanker trips to those communities to ensure that they had potable water on regular basis. It would be recalled that the GNA reported that for the past week, taps in some house on the Abentia Block at La in Accra, had been delivering unwholesome water that stinks and has colour.

Residents told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that what was supposed to be treated water running through their taps exuded stench similar to a choked gutter scent.

Mrs Sandra Ollenu, a resident, told the GNA she and her neighbours first noticed the abnormality with the water quality a week ago. "Even though water has been flowing regularly, it is unusable because of the dirt and the stench," she said, adding that, the neighbourhood had since been buying water from private suppliers at high cost.

Mrs. Ollenu and others also expressed fears of the likelihood of the utility company continuing to bill them, even though they had stopped using the water because they found it unsafe.

Officials from the Ghana Water Company have confirmed that the water was unwholesome after they took samples from the neighbourhood, based on a report lodged to it by the GNA.

However, the company is yet to determine the source of the problem. Mr. Kweku Botwe, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Water Company, told the GNA that a technical team would be deployed to the area to find out the exact problem and take the necessary measures to resolve it. 12 Sept. 08