The Managing Director of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Clifford Braimah, has stated that the company was not established to be profitable.

Mr. Braimah's assertion follows the release of a report that named GWCL as topping the list of non-performing State Owned Enterprises with a loss of GHC938 million. GWCL, COCOBOD and Ghana Airports Company Limited, combined, posted a loss of over GHC1.5 billion in the 2020 fiscal year.

Speaking in an interview on Joy FM’s Midday News on Tuesday, Mr. Braimah explained that GWCL was not established to make profit.

“Let’s set the parameters right. Was GWCL set up to make profit? The benefit of this country during Covid was credited to water supply. The lack of cholera over the period has been credited to water supply. These are social benefits. If you want to talk about profitability in its true sense, these are factors that you have to also consider and that is why a public utility company like water, nobody sets it up for profitability,“ he explained.

He added that, “some of the companies are not profitable because of economies of scale. GWCL does not determine the locations of the water facilities, it is the decision of the government. If GWCL was supposed to determine where they should put the infrastructure and supposed to determine by profitability, we will have areas to invest in and areas not to invest.”

He said that GWCL is operating with the limited resources to ensure that they are efficient and can deliver water to consumers at the appropriate time and quality.

He further noted GWCL’s plan is to ensure that the Company will still be in existence to serve future generations, hence the need to take care of the issues at hand.

“GWCL is using our operational money to invest in the capital expenditure to bring 4 brand new pumps here. If you go to Sekyere, because of the galamsey, three of our brand new pumps instead of drawing water, drew silt, so they crashed and we had to go and buy them with Euros,” he stressed.

According to Mr. Braimah, the commodity prices cannot be determined by the company, so any increases, fluctuations, or depreciation of the cedi cannot be passed on to the consumer, resulting in losses for the company.

"GWCL is not making any profit because it is taking care of issues that should have been taken care of 50 years ago,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah has announced that the Ghana Water Company will soon embark on a house to house audit to reduce losses and improve the supply of water.

Speaking at the Meet the Press series in Accra, Mrs. Dapaah said her outfit will ensure that all persons found culpable, will face the law.