Barely 12 hours after President Akufo Addo made has his widely hailed statement that the government will absorb the water bills of Ghanaian for the next three months, than the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) rubbished the President’s assurance.
It what has been seen as a direct disregard for the President’s order, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has vowed that customers who have defaulted in the payment of their water bills will not be allowed to enjoy the three-month (April to June 2020) bill waiver.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Dr Clifford Braimah he will withhold water from those who owe GWCL bills as a retrospective punishment from the next three months that others will enjoy free water.
“The people who are owing us, we expect that they pay before they get free water. Somebody said those of them who have been disconnected, we have to connect them so that they will benefit from the three months [free water service]. I said the President is not telling me to give free water to those who are not connected because the president is not paying for January or February. And so those owing will have to pay,” he said in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM today.
However, in President Akufo Addo’s address on Sunday evening to update the country about the Covid-19 coronavirus situation, he explicitly stated that nobody should be disconnected and that the free utility supply should be for “all Ghanaians”.
“….the Ghana Water Company Ltd and the Electricity Company of Ghana have been directed to ensure the stable supply of water and electricity during this period. In addition, there will be no disconnection of supply. Furthermore, Government will absorb the water bills for all Ghanaians for the next three months, i.e. April, May and June. All water tankers, publicly and privately-owned, are also going to be mobilised to ensure the supply of water to all vulnerable communities,” the President said.
Meanwhile, there are another group of Ghanaians whom the President apparently failed to address in his speech: These are residents who are forced to buy water daily as a result of a lack of accessibility to portable water.
Some of these residents have complained that the President’s assurance was simply a sham that did not reflect the reality.
Also, despite instruction by the President for uninterrupted electricity supply, some areas in the country recorded power outages less than 12 hours after the President’s assurance.
The devastating Covid-19 pandemic has so far spread through over 214 residents in Ghana and has killed 5 in less than one month.
This deadly nature of the pandemic and its extremely contagious has forced the government to lock down some epicentres of the disease in Ghana. This means that residents outside essential services Ghana neither go to work nor earn a living within the lockdown period.
The President’s incentive was therefore meant to ease the financial squeeze that would be experienced by residents caught in the lockdown.