Kwanyaku Water Works Extension Completed

From Stephen Effah, Kwanyaku
Friday, 15 December 2006 (Page 4)

Expansion work on the Kwanyaku Water Supply System to produce an additional 4.6 million gallons of water daily to serve five districts in the Central Region will be completed by the end of December, seven months ahead of time.

The 24.136 million Euro project, which will be inaugurated in January, involve the rehabilitation of the old water treatment plant to increase its production capacity from 2.7million to 3.8million gallons per day.

The old and the new plant will together produce a total of 7.7 million gallons a day to meet the demand of 750,000 people.

The Managing Director of the Ghana Water Company, Mr Gerald Samuel Odartey Lamptey, made this known to newsmen when the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Hackman Owusu Agyemang, inspected the project site on Wednesday.

Funding for the project, which started in January 2005 was provided by the Dutch and Ghana governments and was scheduled to be completed in June 2007. It is being executed by Denys Engineers and contractors.

He said 13 towns and 160 surrounding villages in the Agona, Gomoa, Mfantsiman, Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam and Awutu-Efutu-Senya districts will benefit.

The Director of Denys Engineers and Contractors, Bruno Geltmeyer said the new conventional treatment plant is currently being test-run, and added "we have been doing testing of the water quality at the laboratory in the last week to ensure good quality".

He said the standard of treated water in the country is better than the required standards by the World Health Organisation.

Mr.Owusu Agyemang commended the Netherlands for the support and the contractors for the good work done so far to solve the water problems facing the people.

He said that apart from Assin area all other major towns and cities in the Central Region will now have treated water which is a major step towards solving the water crisis in the region.

He said that government is committed to ensuring that 85 per cent of Ghanaians have access to potable water by 2015, noting that water is one of the Millennium Development Goal that Ghana can achieve "because of the concern government is giving to the sector."

He said that government is sourcing funds from Exim Bank China to construct a major treatment plant at Kpone Number 2 by middle of next year to produce about 4 million gallons of water per day which will also be complemented by the Accra Rural water project to cater for Dodowa and its surroundings.

Mr.Owusu Agyeman said that while water is being produced, it is important that Ghanaians take its management very seriously saying "management of the water we produce is very important and we cannot use treated water for washing cars".