Accra, June 9, GNA - The newly formed Ghana Urban Water Limited is to take over the management and operations of all the 81 Urban Water Systems in the country for the next 12 months.

This is the result of the handing over of Urban Water Management from Aqua Vitens Rand Limited (AVRL) to Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) last Monday after five years operation.

Mr Alban S. K. Bagbin, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, announced this at a meet-the-press series to highlight the latest development in the water sub-sector.

He explained that during the 12 month period, GWCL would continue to play its role as the asset holder with responsibility for asset expansion and development whilst Ghana Urban Water Limited takes the responsibility of managing operations of the 81 systems.

"At the same time, government through the sector ministry, will take a comprehensive look at the water sector in general, and come out with a reviewed legal and institutional arrangement that will move both rural and urban water delivery forward in a more purposeful manner," he added.

Mr Bagbin said that arrangement was a major and significant cross road which had the potential to derail whatever gains in investment and experiences that the stakeholders might have gathered over the past five years.

He said some development partners had already indicated their intention to provide the needed support to enable an autonomous Ghana Urban Water Limited to smoothly step into the shoes of AVRL with an enhanced and thoroughly reviewed performance contract incorporating lessons from the erstwhile Management Contract.

GWCL and AVRL went into Management Contract in November 2005 and AVRL took over management effective June 6, 2006 for a period of five years. Meanwhile, there were allegations of non-performance on the part of AVRL, which led to agitation from a cross-section of the public including consumers, workers and some civil society organisations and the media calling for non-renewal of the contract, and a return of the systems to GWCL.

Mr Bagbin stressed the need to institute a dispassionate process of auditing AVRL's performance over the five years, nature of the terms and conditions of the Management Contract that tended to frustrate the partnership between the two parties, which encouraged government to opt for an interim arrangement in the form of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV).

"Government through the sector ministry, even through Ghana Urban Water Limited, will be managed directly by a selected team of professionals drawn mainly from GWCL, and governed by its own Board.

"We will and must ensure that this independent vehicle is focused, energised and sufficiently lean and nimble footed to power Urban Water Management to the next level in the coming 12 months.

"This is the only way to ensure that the new entity stayed focused and thus provide greater comfort to our long term partners in the private sector, and especially the development partners," he added.

He called for full public cooperation from consumers to enable the new managers to give off their best and achieve their target.

Mr Bagbin mentioned non-payment of bills, vandalism of systems and destruction of pipelines during construction as some of the challenges facing the sector and called for attitudinal change.