Customers of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in the Bono Region owe the company GHC6.1 million, Dr Samuel Ason, the Bono Regional Chief Engineer of the GWCL has said.

 The outstanding debts, he explained, were water bills piled up in the past three months, and asked defaulting customers to settle the bills or prepare themselves for prosecution.

Already, Dr Ason said the company had dragged 10 recalcitrant customers who had failed to settle their water bills after several notices to court for prosecution, and urged other defaulting customers to pay their water bills to avoid trouble.

    The Regional Chief Engineer gave the advice in an interview with Sompa FM when Madam Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister visited the regional office of the GWCL in Sunyani, to acquaint herself with the operations of the company.

    Highlighting challenges affecting the operations of the company in the region, Dr Ason said meter theft, encroachments and illegal connection of water were major problems the company was struggling to tackle.

    He therefore appealed to customers to be watchful and protect the meters, saying "our meters contain brass and the thieves steal, extract and sell the brass thereby affecting regular water supply to households".

    Dr Ason expressed worry about uncontrolled destruction of the company's pipelines by road contractors affecting the operations of the company as well.

    On her part, Mad Owusu-Banahene said "water is life" and remained a basic necessity which nobody should deny, and asked the company to tackle challenges impeding water supply in the region.

    She advised the company to drill more boreholes to provide potable drinking water to distress and emerging settlements in the Sunyani Municipality.

    Mad Owusu-Banahene later toured the Abesim Headworks of the company which treated and pumped on average 1.5 million gallons of water daily for residents in the municipality.

Source…www.sompaonline.com/Dennis Peprah