The Chief Executive of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) has bemoaned the quality of water in the country.

Addressing the press on Sunday, Ing. Dr Worlanyo Kwadjo Siabi said the quality of water is an issue.

“We also noted that water quality is a problem in Ghana,” he said.

This, according to him, was observed from a study the CWSA undertook.

Engineer Dr Kwadjo Siabi noted that about 95% of water sources in the country are obtained from groundwater.

He added that “all the data that we have, suggests that about 30% of the groundwater that has high levels of iron, manganese, fluorides, arsenic and hardness, and all of these have health challenges.”

According to him, the surface water sources have also deteriorated due to human activities in most river basins in the country.

Mr. Siabi also noted that there have been other challenges such as frequent breakdown of the water facilities. He cited an instance of a water project which was completed in 2016 but broke down a year after completion.

The CEO of CWSA mentioned that his outfit also observed during its studies that “there are very high unaccounted for water.” This he described as a huge challenge as 50% of water is unaccounted for.

Mr. Siabi further stated that there has been a huge accumulated electricity bill on community-managed water systems. According to him, the accumulated water bill is to the tune of 40 million Ghana cedis.

“The initial estimate we did was that a number of the water systems, when we put all the outstanding bills that they had with either ECG or VRA, we had over 40 million Ghana cedis,” he said.

Other issues he stated are; misapplication of funds within communities, inadequate supervision by assemblies, technical and managerial capacity at community level, inadequate financing for post-construction activities to guarantee regular follow-ups etc.