Deputy Minister of Information, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa says it would have been “undemocratic and inimical” on the part of the government to have extended the AVRL’s contract. The Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL) was contracted by the government of Ghana five years ago to manage the country’s urban water supply, which expired on Monday, June 6 and has since handed over its responsibilities to the Ghana Water Company Limited. Speaking on Joy FM’s Newsfile hosted by Matilda Asante-Asiedu on Saturday, the Deputy Minister of Information said an independent preliminary audit report on the performance of the company indicates that the AVRL did not meet its targets. “As a government, it would have been very undemocratic and a bit inimical if we had given AVRL a second chance or extended their contract…even in terms of key indicators, as per the management contract, [it doesn’t appear] AVRL had met these key indicators ” He said when the contract was signed, the wasted water or unaccounted revenue stood at 48 per cent which AVRL was supposed to ensure a 5 per cent annual reduction, but ended up increasing it to 50 per cent as at 2011. A comprehensive audit was yet to be carried out on the operations of the AVRL, Mr Ablakwa noted, to confirm or otherwise of the company’s claim of achieving 15% growth in production, 20% growth in customer relations, 23% growth in sales and 250% growth in revenue. He said the decision not to renew the contract was in order, explaining that it would save the government some fortunes, disclosing that its expatriate Managing Director was taking home a monthly salary of $20,000, admitting that same would not have been paid to a local manager. “This whole arrangement did not come cheap; it came at a huge cost to the government of Ghana. We were spending not less than $155,000 on management fees per a month,” in addition to the annual World Bank support of “not less than 10 million” to the company, Mr Okudzeto said. He also assured that there would be no job loss in the abrogation of the contract, saying employees under the AVRL would be reverted to the Ghana Water Company Limited. Mr Dominic Ntiwul, Member of Parliament for Bimbilla, was of the view that AVRL could not perform as expected due to operational challenges, citing deficient bulk meters to monitor the volume of water pumped to a particular area. Story by Isaac Essel/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana