WATER RETAILERS UNDERMIND AQUA VITENS OPERATIONS (PAGE 29)

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi

Activities of some water retailers and washing bay operators in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis are undermining the efforts of Aqua Vitens Rand Limited, who are acting for and on behalf of the Ghana Water Company to improve the company’s services of their customers in the metropolis.
Some washing bay operators cut the service lines to legitimate customers and divert the water to their storage facilities.
At Sekondi, a woman who retails water in huge reservoirs was arrested for diverting a line to enable her to fill her reservoirs without the water passing through the meter, thereby avoiding paying any bill on the water so drawn into her reservoirs.
The act, which she normally does in the evening, was uncovered when she forgot to reconnect the line to the meter after the diversion before the arrival of the Loss Control team of the company at her place.
At Kojokrom, also in the metropolis, a customer was also arrested for diversion.
The Regional Public Relations Officer of the company, Mr Sampson Ampah, said such activities were seriously having effect on their work, as well as their quest to make their services available to customers.
“We have just arrested four young men who have cut the service line of some customers at Esikafoamba Ntem in Takoradi for destroying the company’s service line and using it for their car-washing business,” he said.
Mr Ampah said the customers on the said service line always complained to the officials of the company and so a Loss Control team was dispatched to the area to investigate.
“Upon investigations, it came out that these four young men had channelled the water, using huge containers to store it for their business, thereby depriving the customers of our services,” the PRO said.
To curb the situation, he said even though they had a loss control team that was doing great work, information from the public about these activities of some unscrupulous members of the public, who always want to find a way of cheating the system, would go a long way to help salvage the situation.
About the intermittent cut in their supply, Mr Ampah said that could be attributed to power outages.
He explained that when the machines were running and the power went off, the pressure reduces and when power was restored, the process would have to start all over again and that took time.
To arrest the situation, the public relations officer assured the consumers that Aqua Vitens was in serious talks with the management of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to help provide them with privilege service such that even when there was a power outage, the machines could still pump water.
He, therefore, used the opportunity to appeal to the unscrupulous members of society to ensure that service lines to customers were left to those who had legally applied for their services.
“Our Loss Control Unit are out there and would make sure that everything possible is done to ensure that the activities of those who want to cheat the system are halted,” he cautioned.