GWCL rehabilitates 500 metres of Kpong-Tema pipelines

 The Ghana Water Compa­ny Limited (GWCL) has successfully replaced 100 meters of the over 50-kilometer Kpong-Tema transmission pipeline on schedule.

The leaking rehabilitated stretch now restores the integrity of the pipeline for the transmission of treated water from the compa­ny’s Kpong treatment plant to its booster station at Tema.

The replacement of the 42-inch diameter pipeline which had been underground for over 50 years forms part of the gradual ap­proach adopted by the company to replace the entire stretch over a period.

This brings to 500 meters (0.5 kilometers) of pipeline rehabili­tated by the company since 2021. In 2021 and earlier this year, two 200-meter separate rehabilitations were undertaken at Gbetsele in Ashaiman and around the Ensign area in Kpong.

At the time the management of the company visited the two sec­tions where the replacement was being done in Kpong on Tuesday, engineers were busily putting fin­ishing touches to the laid pipes to restore water supply to the eastern part of Accra.

As a result of the replacement of the pipe which begun on Sunday September 23, 2022, over two million consumers had been without water until early Wednes­day morning when the works were completed and water provision restored.

Public Relations Officer of the Company, Stanley Martey, who briefed the media on the project said the exercise cost the GWCL over GH¢4 million.

“To change the entire pipeline from Kpong to Tema is capital extensive and the GWCL does not have the money to change the entire stretch at a go.

“What we are doing currently is that we have identified the weaker sections of the pipeline and chang­ing them from time-to-time with our internally generated funds and our own expertise,” he said.

According to him, the replace­ment of out-of-date and dilapi­dated pipelines were not limited to the Kpong-Tema stretch but other facilities across the country to maintain the integrity of the pipelines and to improve on its water supply operations.

“Throughout the country, we have similar challenges, weak and leaking pipes and so we are doing the same thing in all other opera­tional areas all from our internally generated funds and with our own engineers,” he said.

He said the GWCL remain com­mitted to processing and transmit­ting quality potable water for its customers and would not relent on that responsibility.

Mr Martey appealed to the customers of the company to bear with them as they fix the pipes and urged them to pay their bills to ensure the company lived up to its mandate.

 FROM JULIUS YAO PETETSI, KPONG