GWCL "Ananse" Tricks Exposed

Officials resort to PR cover-up following Chronicle's revelation

Chronicle's undercover investigations have revealed that barely ten hours after the paper carried the story last Tuesday, alleging that the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) had not been undertaking post-chlorination treatment of water at its two booster stations - Ashaiman and Okponglo, the company quickly carried some quantity of chemicals to those plants.

This was followed by a tour by a selected number of press houses who, Chronicle got to know, lacked adequate knowledge about the story.

Information gathered from the GWCL was that on the day of the publication, directives were issued from above, asking management to do damage control.

The first thing that was done on 'Operation image saving' was to supply the Tema/Ashaiman booster station 14 rubber containers of calcium hypo-chloride with the Accra/Okponglo station being given eight containers of the same chemical.

The Central Stores at Mile 18, Tema, and the two booster stations can attest to this as supplies were made between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.

By Wednesday, messages had gone to these stations that they should prepare for a tour by the press by the close of day.

On Thursday and Friday, officials of the GWCL picked a handful of journalists from such media houses as TV3, Graphic, Times and GBC to Kpong and the Central Stores at Tema.

The unsuspecting reporters were guided as to what to write, pictures to take, where to go and where not to go to, in order that the GWCL would achieve its goal of image-saving.

Surprisingly the Okponglo station was not visited by the touring media, even though Chronicle's story centered around installations there and at Ashaiman.

What the story said was that the two booster stations had been releasing water to the Accra-Tema metropolitan area without undertaking post-chlorination treatment.

This is because the chlorinators had broken down, long ago and a substituted bleaching powder had also run out of stock at the two stations.

In denying the story, GWCL threw dust into the eyes of the public by going to talk about Kpong, or Kpone as the GNA story called it and the Central Stores at mile 18 which were not the focal points.

Since the GWCL reacted quickly to the sticky situation when we reported, but decided not to give us credit - rather resorting to PR gimmicks, let us again draw its attention to the threat to the Ashaiman pumping house and reservoirs.

Since the entire neighbourhood bordering its fence is not provided with public toilets, both the young and old troop into the yard, day and night to attend to nature's call.

Information reaching Chronicle has it that the press tour is going to be crowned with a press conference and if that is done, please include Chronicle and Adom FM reporters.

If an investigation is to be conducted into post-chlorination at the two plants, it would be discovered that since August, last year, the only time post-chlorination treatment was done at Ashaiman booster station was on January 6, this year, when six drums of the chemical was supplied. Delivery was done on December 31, last year.

The Okponglo station did their last dosing during the Christmas period, they had also received six drums of the chemical. The chemical-receiving books of these two stations can attest to that.

As for the broken-down chlorinators, only God knows when they are going to be made operational.

The paper is also drawing the attention of the GWCL to the chambers of the reservoirs at the two stations.

Reports gathered, have it that since 1992, there has not been any cleaning of these chambers, even though it is supposed to be done every three years.