An acute water shortage has hit Apam and its surrounding communities in the past two weeks, pushing up the cost of untreated water as sold by truck pushers to 100 cedis a gallon. The Assembly member for Alata-Akobire electoral area in Apam, Madam Grace Okoe, told the Ghana News Agency that as a result of the shortage, most school children were reporting to school very late, while others do not attend school with the excuse that they were searching for water. According to her, some of the children were also using school hours to fetch water and sell to residents in order to make some money. Madam Okoe appealed to the Ghana Water Company and relevant governmental agencies to help bring the situation under control by deploying water tankers in the area. She said her outfit was arranging for poly-tanks to store water for the people. In a telephone interview with the Ghana News Agency at Winneba, a spokesman for the Ghana Water Company, said due reduction of power to the pumping machine, only a few gallons of water are pumped to the people in the area. According to him presently between seven and eight million gallons of water are being pumped to the people of Winneba and Apam instead of the normal 15 million gallons daily. GNA