The government has so far spent GHC836.82 million in total on implementing the free water policy to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has said.
The free water policy was announced by the President Nana Addo Dankwa-Akufo-Addo to cushion Ghanaians during the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak last year.
The programme, which ran from April to December 2020, was extended to June this year for lifeline domestic customers.
Delivering the government’s Mid-Year Budget Review in Parliament on Thursday (29 July), Ofori-Atta said: “Mr Speaker, as part of the government’s social interventions for supply of free water under the COVID-19 initiatives, the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources partnered Ghana Water Company Ltd (GWCL) and the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) to ensure the full realisation of the objective. The programme started in April 2020 and was supposed to have ended in December 2020.”
Ofori-Atta added: “However, the government decided to extend it to June 2021 for domestic customers whose monthly consumption does not exceed five cubic metres.
“In all over ten million urban dwellers were supplied with potable water by GWCL from April to December 2020. Currently, a total of over 2.30 million urban domestic dwellers whose monthly consumption does not exceed five cubic metres are benefiting from the programme. The cost of the programme to date is GHC836.82 million.”
The Finance Minister said water supplied to rural and peri urban areas by the Community Water and Sanitation Authority (CWSA) accounted for GHC100.28 million as at June this year.
“Mr Speaker, CWSA, on the other hand, supplied 17.92 million cubic metres of potable water to rural and peri-urban population of 5.81 million at a total cost of GHC100.28 million between April 2020 to June 2021.”
Fred Dzakpata
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