The Minister of Works and Housing on Thursday announced that five international companies were bidding for the leasing and management of the country's water systems, which would take off next April under the Private Sector Participation (PSP) Project.

Mr Yaw Barimah, who was explaining the point to the Ghana News Agency after addressing a day's seminar on the PSP in Accra said the business framework for the leasing arrangement had been defined and two out of the undisclosed companies would be selected under the deal to boost water supply from the current 59 per cent to 85 per cent of the population in 10 years.

He dismissed public speculations that private sector participation in the sector would lead to an increased in water tariffs, saying, "it is the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) that determines tariffs and not the investor."The PURC would consider the interest of both consumers and investors and strike a good compromise for the country."

The seminar, which formed part of the public awareness campaign on the commercialisation process was organised by the Water Sector Restructuring Secretariat (WSRS) of The Ministry of Works and Housing in collaboration with the Institute of Economic Affairs for stakeholders.

Mr Barimah said the principal objective of the water sector was to increase access to potable water at affordable rates. "While seeking to increase access we have to maintain existing systems...laid 50 - 70 years ago and need to be replaced.

"There is some level of public misunderstanding and misconception of the restructuring process. Sometimes it is plain misrepresentation borne out of ideological dogmas." The Minister called for intellectual debate on the issue "to help in distilling the facts from the fiction."

Mr Emmanuel Nkrumah, Water Engineer with the WSRS, said the private participation in the water sector had been necessitated by deteriorating infrastructure, institutional deficiencies that adversely affected demand and supply of water as a result of low cost recovery arising out of low tariffs.

He said there was the need for a huge investment of about 1.2 billion dollars for the next 10 years to streamline the situation before the eventual collapse of the inefficient and over-aged water systems.

Mr Nkrumah said countries like Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Guinea and the Gambia, which have implemented similar PSP projects were able to raise the supply of potable water, improved on efficiency in supply and boosted tariff collection.

Mr Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, Government's Chief Whip, who chaired the function, called for national consensus to facilitate the smooth implementation of the PSP. He said the emotional debate over the issue was counter-productive, arguing that the only interest of the government in the project was to implement the laudable project started by its predecessor to revamp the water sector.

Participants at the seminar called on the WSRC to step up public awareness campaign about the numerous benefits of the project and avoid the lapses that were likely to impede its successful implementation.