GWCL says Chronicle report is baseless and untrue

The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has denied and condemned media report that people in Accra east were being supplied with untreated water from Kpone Headworks via Ashiaman and Opkonglo booster stations.

It described as untrue and baseless the report in the Ghanaian Chronicle newspaper, which alleged that Kpone and the two Booster stations at Ashiaman and Opkonglo had ran short of water treatment chemicals.

The paper said in its Tuesday edition that as a result lack of chemicals, the headworks, from the booster stations has been producing and transmitting water without chlorinating for the past five months.

A visit to the Kpone Headworks on Thursday with journalists to ascertain the problem indicated that the GWCL had more than enough of the various chemicals used in treating the water including calcium hydrochloride.

Charles Tulashie, the Chemist Bacteriologist at the Kpone headwork said he was dismayed when he heard the report because they never run short of any chemical the whole of last year.

He said, "at the moment we have in store 159 calcium hydrochloride apart from the other substitutes such as bleaching powder and chlorine gas which are use interchangeably because they all serve the same purpose".

Tulashie said every week the unit sends report to the head office on the chemical stock level at the headworks, which would make it very difficult for them to run short. "Besides there was no way we could transmit or supply water without treating it at the headworks, we know its implications."

He explained that every hour they conduct an analysis to check the bacteria, residual chlorine as well as other chemical such the calcium hydrochloride, iron, magnesium among others.

Jonas Jabulo, Acting Chief Manager of the Water Quality Assurance said the Chronicle was also wrong to state that post chlorination were being done at the booster station. He said they were always done at the headworks, adding, "what happens at the booster stations is different, besides we only apply chemicals at that level when we realize that there have been a number of repairs on the pipes at the area."

Jabulo said the chlorinators at the Okponglo and Ashiaman which were damaged as of now, as the paper pointed out, were just back-ups and therefore, were use only in the situation described above. "Currently we do the application of the chlorine manually at the two stations and there has never been any problem with it," he said.

The fourth quarter report of the Kpone treated and distribution water evaluation copied the press shows that all headworks in the country achieved 100 per cent water quality production and supply.

These included the water turbidity, colour, residual chlorine, faecal Coliform and taste and odour. At the GWCL Central Stores where they keep all chemicals before they were distributed to the various stations countrywide, Kofi Quarshie, Acting Stores Manager took journalists round and showed them excess stored of the various chemicals.

He said at present they have in store 264 bleaching powder, 222 Calcium hydrochloride and 59-chlorine gas that could sustain the entire country for the next month before the arrival of the next consignment.