It is your civil responsibility to report water thieves – PURC

The Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) has reminded members of the public of their civil responsibility to report people and institutions that steal from the Ghana Water Limiter (GWL).

It said reporting people stealing water produced by the GWL or making illegal connections of water should not be misconstrued as being a bad person but rather a person fulfilling his or her civic obligation to the state.

Abdul-Wadud Ali, the Upper West Regional Manager of the PURC, said this in Wa at the weekend during a float to educate the public on the need for them to pay for the water services they received from the GWL and to desist from illegal connections of the water.

“The consequences are that if the GWL is losing, a percentage of that might come back to you and me to pay in our tariff, looking at the tariff structure, because it’s going to increase their losses.

They (the GWL) have a limit that they have to abide by, but if we force them to exceed the limit they are supposed to meet, it might come back to you and me to pay”, he explained.

Mr. Ali also encouraged the public to patronise the services of the GWL in the region because it produced good quality water for human consumption.

He said, for instance, the latest Ghana Utility Performance Index by the PURC indicated that out of the 16 offices of GWL in the country, the Upper West Region had the best quality water.

He, however, regretted that many people in the region were not yet connected to the services of GWL, which he said, also prompted awareness creation to encourage people to connect to the GWL system.

Ali observed that many people in the region were not connected to the GWL services due to financial challenges but added that the GWL was working to subsidies the cost of new water service connection under the pro-poor policy to enable many people patronise their services.

The PURC Regional Boss also encouraged the customers of GWL to promptly pay their water bills to enable the company to function effectively saying, “Their (the GWL) financial viability is very important to the commission.”

Kwasi Abebrese, the Upper West Regional Chief Manager of GWL, warned the public against illegal water connections and said anyone apprehended in that act would be dealt with according to the laws.

He explained that illegal water connection did not only affect the cost of water delivery, but also the quality of the water people consume hence the need for all hands to be on deck to prevent it.

“If people tamper with our installations, what happens is that we get dirty water surrounding siphoning back into the water system and it spreads throughout the system for all of us consumers,” Abebrese explained.