Mr Kofi Agbogah, a Research Scientist at the Water Research Institute (WRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has said about 50 percent of sachet water on the market was contaminated by microbes.

Speaking at a symposium on Freshwater at Vakpo in the Kpando District he said the situation had arisen because most producers of the sachet water normally submitted only the first batches of products to the WRI for scrutiny.

He said after that they failed to submit subsequent batches of their products for the necessary tests.

Mr Agbogah said the WRI did not have the capacity and mandate to police water on the market and relied on the public for samples for testing whenever they doubted its efficacy.

On the coloration of pipe-borne water, Mr Agbogah said that could happen because of seepage of foreign material through broken pipelines due to age and not because water was not well treated by the Ghana Water Company (GWC).

He said the major source of water pollution in the country was improper disposal of domestic waste and not by industrial activities.