GWCL to close down plant over illegal sand winning
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The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in the Northern Region has warned that it may be forced to cut the supply of water to Tamale and surrounding communities, due to the activities of illegal sand winners at one of its treatment plants in the region.
According to the company, the situation has worsened, as it now draws out more mud than water, due to high levels of siltation in the White Volta caused by sand winning.
The White Volta is the only source of raw water for hundreds of thousands of residents in Tamale and other surrounding communities.
However, sand winning activities are diverting the river course and thus increasing the turbidity.
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The Ghana Water Company Limited says it loses over 65,000 Ghana cedis daily at the Dalun water treatment plant due to sand winning activities.
The Public Relations Officer of GWCL in the Northern Region, Nii Abbey, speaking to Joy News at a stakeholders’ forum organised by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, (PURC) said all efforts to get authorities to regulate the activities of these sand winners have failed.
“We are getting to a situation whereby the activities of illegal sand winners and not stopped, we may be compelled to suspend our operations because the treatment plants are constructed to abstract water and not mud, the operations of the illegal sand winners, they are…….silting it to the extent that now it’s virtually mud we are drawing.”
“If care is not taken we may be compelled to suspend operations and we know the dare consequences in terms of economic, health and even our day to day activities,” he added.
