PUWU asks Nana Addo to convert desalination plant into emergency facility

General News on Thursday, January 24, 2019

Source: citinewsroom.com

2019-01-24

The Union of Public Service Workers (PUWU) asked the president to consider abandoning the Accra desalination plant in Teshie.

The union raised concerns about the high costs of operating the facility and even the allegedly excessive amounts of salt in the water.

In the petition, the PUWU urged the government to buy back the factory so that GWCL could use it as a backup facility.

"This will eliminate the variable costs, which add to the losses of the company every time the desalination plant operates."

Instead, the union said, "The government could arrange a loan facility on behalf of GWCL to buy the plant to be repaid by GWCL over a very long period of time."

The union is also concerned about the state's relationship with AquaVenture Holdings (AVH), an investment company.

The government should not support the sale of the plan to AVH, an investment company.

"This is nothing but a trap from private investors to operate a state corporation."

The union further stated that it feared that the GWCL "would be forced to guarantee a loan facility of $ 10 million to repay the accumulated debt resulting from the capacity charge, electricity bills, etc. contracted on the desalination plant ".

"The fact of contracting a loan just to pay the outstanding debts of GWCL to Befesa" is likely to pose a serious threat to the industrial harmony and the situation of water supply in Ghana, "a- he concluded.