Metre thefts increasing our operational cost – GCWL boss

The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has expressed concern over the theft of meter components, which increases their operational costs and makes water access to homes difficult.

The concern was in response to a question by the Public Accounts Committee on reasons why the company recorded a loss of ¢1.8 billion in 2019.

Citing galamsey activities and the continuous repair of machines among others as some other major reasons, the Managing Director of the company, Clifford Braimah, stressed that the stealing of the meters is a major concern.

“People now vandalize them just because they contain some brass in our safety valves. That is the challenge in our business. Every day, there is a cost that we don’t anticipate and is put on our operations. So now people are breaking them. Just recently, in Tema, 30 meters were vandalized and taken away. If you’re lucky, they will take the brass and leave the meter for you to come and pick up. If you’re not lucky, they will go and throw it somewhere you can never find. So you’ve lost water, you’ve lost your meter,” he added.

In view of this, Mr. Braimah said plans were underway to replace these meters with materials that are not valuable to unscrupulous persons.

“We have decided that the manufacturers use materials that are not useful to them. We are exploring ways of using fibreglass, which is not useful to them. All these will increase our costs because we don’t estimate them,” he stated.