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Dalun, Ghana – Managing Director of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Dr. Clifford Braimah, has hinted of employing the might of national security to quell growing sand winning activities at Nawuni in the Kumbungu District of the Northern Region of Ghana.
He said the activities of recalcitrant sand winners on the banks of River Nawuni also known as the White Volta River, which served as the raw water intake point of the GWCL, had polluted the water body.
Dr Braimah gave the hint when he briefed journalists in Tamale after he and the Board toured the Dalun Water Treatment Plant on Wednesday to abreast of operational challenges facing the company and its staff in the region.
However, the Chief of Dalun, Dalun Naa Mahama Amidu, pledged to collaborate with GWCL and other stakeholders to end the sand winning activities in the area.
Early January, the Northern Regional Minister Salifu Saeed and members of the Regional Security Council of which he is the Chairman, visited Nawuni to assess the sand winning situation.
During that visit, Mr Saeed and REGSEC discovered an excavator with registration number GV3295-15 belonging to National Security being used by the sand winners.
Unfortunately, not a formal statement has been made by Northern Regional Coordinating Council where this excavator was kept until it was discovered at Nawuni in the possession of environmental destroyers.
The Nawuni River, the main production source of potable water for residents of the Tamale Metropolis, Savelugu-Nanton and Sagnarigu Municipalities as well as the Tolon and Kumbungu Districts, has come under serious environmental threat.
Years of uncontrolled sand winning by the building industry, has destroyed farmlands and the ecosystem along the river banks including economic and medicinal trees.
As a result, the depth of the river has drastically reduced over the years due to silts which have incapacitated its water holding ability.
More worrying is the fact that, the silting of the river is also threatening its future capacity to supply the required volume of of water to over 500 thousand residents of the five MMDAs.
The shallowness of the river has also resulted into perennial flooding of communities along its banks which sometimes lead to loss of lives and property.
About 54 percent of the overall total water currently produced by the GWCL in the Northern Region according to Dr Braimah was unaccounted for. He attributed the problem to illegal connection and refusal by many customers to pay their bills.
“Alot of people are doing illegal connection and so we want to get them to stop….if you have a neighbour who is refusing to pay or doing illegal connection, if I’m calculating my tarriff, I see the water that he’s using as unaccounted for”, he explained.
The Dalun Water Treatment Plant is supposed to be a national security installation, but unfortunately checks conducted by Citi News has revealed that, there is poor security around the facility especially at a time external and internal security threats such as terrorism were rife.
With only a few unarmed private security guards on duty at every given time and not a single close circuit television camera installed, the GWCL MD downplayed any security concerns when Citi News posed a question to him.
He however stated that, national security concerns such as providing security to the plant were being handled by the state security machinery to ensure that all national security installations in the country were duly protected.
Meanwhile, the Yendi and Damongo water projects are due to start by mid-2018 following the signing of both contracts. What was left according to the GWCL MD was for the Finance Ministry to conclude all financial transactions associated with the execution of both contracts.
The GWCL MD and the Board also visited Tono and Vea to inspect the former where a new project is also expected to commence soon to supply water to the Navrongo and Bolgatanga Municipalities in the Upper East Region.
By Savannahnews
