After months of parched taps and escalating public frustration, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has offered a glimmer of hope to the residents of Teshie and its environs.
The company says it is working “around the clock” to restore the Teshie-Nungua Desalination Plant by the end of January 2026, potentially ending a crisis that has forced thousands to rely on expensive private vendors.
Speaking on JoyFM’s Newsnight on Monday evening, January 12, the Communications Director of GWCL, Stanley Martey, broke the company’s silence on the legal and technical “impasse” that has kept the $126 million plant offline since October 2025.
For the nearly 500,000 residents across Teshie, Nungua, Baatsona, Spintex, and Sakumono, water scarcity has become a grim daily reality.
While some areas previously enjoyed near-constant flow, Mr Martey admitted that for most, the service was already fragile long before the current collapse.
“Until October, every area was receiving [water] an average of four days in a week. Rationing has been ongoing for a very long time. We don’t dispute that. But then a few people were getting 24/7 but the rest of us were getting an average of four days in a week,” Mr Martey explained.
The shutdown of the desalination plant, which converts seawater into potable drinking water, has gutted the volumes available to the coastal belt.
Mr Martey noted that whenever technical challenges arise, the first casualty is the rationing schedule.
“There are certain times that we have challenges. When we have challenges, and then the volumes are reduced, definitely it affects the rational programme. But I’m saying that averagely, we get water four days in a week.”
While the GWCL has released a temporary rationing timetable to manage the current shortfall, Mr Martey indicated that a permanent fix is tied to the resumption of the desalination plant.
However, he warned that while the engineers can control the physical repairs, the legal hurdles are more complex.
“Under the circumstances, we are doing everything possible to ensure that by the end of January, we should end this impasse. But I can’t give a definite date, because I’ve mentioned two issues. When it comes to maintenance, as engineers, we can give ourselves timelines and say that we’ll close in a week or two… But when it comes to legal issues, I can’t predict that it can end in a week or two.”
The “impasse” involves long-standing contractual debts and unresolved servicing obligations between the GWCL, the government, and the plant’s private operators.
Mr Martey revealed that high-level government intervention is now the driving force behind the optimistic January 2026 deadline.
The crisis has recently escalated into a public health concern, with clinics in Teshie reporting an uptick in water-borne infection risks.
Addressing these fears, the GWCL spokesperson appealed for patience, arguing that the delay is necessary to ensure the plant provides safe water for the long term.
“Let me also state that, as we apologize to the people, we want the people to appreciate the fact that everything we are doing is in the interest of the people, because we need good quality drinking water for them, and we need the plant also in a certain condition where we can use it for a very long time. And that is the category issues that we all must appreciate,” Mr Martey concluded.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com
