Mahama to sack inefficient water company managers

President John Mahama has attributed Ghana’s water crisis to dysfunctional administration and inefficient management.

He has therefore tasked the sector minister to restructure the water company and inculcate into new managers international best practice.

The country has been plagued with severe water shortage for several months leading to the rationing of water across the country.

It is not clear when the rationing will end.

But President John Mahama is contemplating drastic action to end the crisis.

At a meeting with editors at the Flagstaff House in Accra on Friday the president said the water sector needs to be decentralised.

He said it should be possible for every community to produce its own water for its constituents.

"I have charged the minister to look at the whole structure. There are best practices across the world. I don’t see why we cannot look at some country where the water system is working and adopt the practice they have and come and do the same thing here.

"Part of it is decentralising the water system so that communities own the water system and are able to run it instead of having some humongous company that is centralised, that looks after water systems all across the country and does not really have the attention to be able to do so," he said.

The president cited the Weija plant as a clear case of inefficiency where instead of producing 58 million gallons of water only 38 million is being produced.

He said the shortfall has been as a result of damage to some filters and pumps which is taking almost eternity to resolve.

“It is just like a dysfunctional organisation. What we need is restructuring the organisation and getting some efficient managers in there to let the organisation sit up and do what it has to do,” he said.

Today marks the United Nation's World Water Day.