The Communications Director of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Stanley Martey has described as “terrible” the current turbidity rate of water bodies in the country.

Comparing the current density of rivers to a “thick groundnut soup”, he said the situation is not only affecting the productivity of GWCL but the logistics used in the filtration process of domestic water.

He stated that pumps placed on rivers to abstract water are frequently getting choked by the sand and stone particles which is largely as a result of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey or sand winning.

“The situation is terrible. I wish we could use more serious words than terrible and serious. Because let’s says if you fetch a bottle of water from any of our rivers, it is thicker than the thickest tea that you can think of or a thick groundnut soup, and it all fine sand and stone particles.

“And one dangerous thing, our intake pumps which are custom made they are not on the shelf that you can just go and buy them. These pumps are built to abstract water but now, they are abstracting sand and stone particles and that makes it difficult for them to work,” he told host Winston Amoah

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Tuesday, the Communications Director said the circumstances is taking an immense toll on the capacity of the company.

According to him, GWCL is forced to shut down for two days in every week to service it pumps, which is not good for business.

 “So what happens is that, we always have to shut down to service or clean these pumps instead of  lets say servicing them once or twice in a month, just like we do to our vehicles, now we have had to do these things almost weekly basis.

“So we are forced to shut down almost every week for two or three days in order to service these intake pumps other than that they cease to function.”

He further cautioned that should the situation persist, Ghana’s water company will be forced to close down permanently.