The Ghana Hotels Association is calling on the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to reimburse bills they have paid to the company since April.

According to them, despite the President’s directive, April 5, that government was going to absorb the water bills for all Ghanaians for the months of April, May and June, hotels and other players in the Tourism sector were still being billed monthly.

They say the President's directive didn't only apply to households, but commercial institutions as well thus the need for the reimbursement.

President of the Ghana Hotels Association, Dr. Edward Ackah-Nyamike speaking on JoyNews’ Upfront stated that when the matter was finally brought before the President, he had expressed surprise and had directed the Tourism Minister, Barbara Oteng Gyasi to follow up on the issue.

“Well after that directive we were hoping that the Ghana Water Company will reverse the decision but that did not happen. We engaged the Ghana Water Company; they said that their Sector Minister had instructed them to charge the commercial users,” he said.

He added that, “The interesting thing about some of these challenges is that we have a sector ministry so we cannot cross our sector ministry to go and deal with the Water and Sanitation Ministry. That has been the protocol. So we raised it with the Sector Minister but unfortunately that has not happened.”

According to Dr. Ackah-Nyamike, following a meeting with the Chief Executive of the Ghana Tourism Authority, he said the issue had been sent to cabinet and cabinet was going to deal with it.

“So we are hoping that Cabinet will really deal with it,” he said.

He expressed hope that Cabinet would direct the Ghana Water Company Limited to reimburse them funds they have paid from April to date.

“…so we are hoping that cabinet will direct them so that those monies we’ve paid from April, May, June to now will be taken off,” he stated.