AQUA VITENS HAS BEEN BENEFICAIL-SAKYI-ADDO

Officials of Aqua Vitens Rand Limited say that calls for the abrogation of a management contract between itself and the government are not defensible since the company has shown success in three years of its operations in the country.
The General Manager Communications, Mr Sakyi-Addo, said such calls were sometimes due to a misconception of the management contract under which AVRL operated and a deliberate refusal by some to acknowledge the gains made by the company so far.
In an interview, Mr Sakyi-Addo, as well as the Communications Manager, Mr Stanley Martey, said AVRL, in three years of its operations in the country had posted increasing profits each year.
In 2005, when the company signed a management contract to operate water systems and ensure the efficient and effective production and distribution of water, billing and revenue collection on behalf of the state owned Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), AVRL recorded a profit of GHC1.9 million.
This increased to GHC13.4 million in 2007 and GHC20 million in 2008, making it a 121 percentage increase in operating surplus over the past two years.
“We’ve got figures that speak for themselves,” Mr Sakyi Addo stated.
The two however emphasised the fact that the profits made were given back to GWCL to invest in capital investments in the water sector, such as, the expansion of treatment plants and the laying of new pipes.
They said in three years of operations in the country, the company had successful delivered on all its key mandates.
For instance, apart from the surpluses posted, the company had been able to efficiently improve on its production and distribution of water.
Operational figures on non-revenue water, that is, water produced and distributed but not paid for had improved by about 49.6 per cent over the years.
They explained that in most instances non-revenue as not water that had gone waste but was used up by people.
However, illegal connections, the siphoning of water by some, among others, accounted for most non-revenue water, something AVRL was working at to redress.
Other successes, they mentioned, were the efficient use of power and chemicals that had ensured quality water and net operational surpluses for investment by GWCL.
On claims that the AVRL had imported used water meters from Holland, Messrs Sakyi-Addo and Martey, said the meters were free donations by subsidiaries of the company to Ghana.
They also refuted claims that calibrating the meters for Ghana’s specific needs might rather make customers pay more for water consumed.
“All new meters are calibrated to ensure that customers pay the right amount for the right volumes of water,” they said.

DAILY GRAPHIC, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2009, PG 44