Madam Nwintuo Ruphina, the acting Municipal Manager of the Tumu Community Water System, says the slow payment of bills for water consumption is derailing efforts to supply more water.
She said with over one thousand customers, majority of whom had defaulted in paying their water bills, the system was not able to buy the required amount of credit to get the machines work at optimum capacity.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency, (GNA) in Tumu, Madam Nwintuo Ruphina, said most of the customers expected the management to come to their homes for the payments of bills, which should not be the case as they had already consumed and should make the effort to reach out to pay.
She said some customers and water users in the various neighbourhoods sometimes burst the pipes leading to gallons of water going waste whilst reports were not made to the Agency to take action.
“They even burst the pipes and run away without reporting whilst residents look on at the water gushing out without reporting”, she said.
She explained that the situation was so serious that sometimes only about 45 per cent of bills were collected with the highest around 75 per cent of revenue.
The Tumu water system currently has six boreholes that provide water in three tanks providing 2,361m2 per hour, resulting in 51,947 gallons per hour.
A new water system is currently being built, with an additional three boreholes with high-yielding water in addition to the construction and rehabilitation of tanks, which is expected to finish in 2024.
In the meantime, the contractor is challenged with difficulty in passing pipelines through existing houses, the inadequate local labour force to dig, and the incidence of broken pipes are hampering the progress of work.
