THE DEPUTY Secretary-General in charge of Operations of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and a leading member of the National Coalition Against Privatisation of Water, Mr. Kofi Asamoah, has urged the New Patriotic Party government not to politicize water because water is life.

He said water plays a very crucial role in the life of every human being so the government should not play political games with the water sector otherwise the nation will be heading towards danger.

Speaking in an interview with the Chronicle, Kofi Asamoah addressed the situation faced by 78 per cent of the urban poor who are outside the piped water system and added that the high water tariffs imposed by intermediary buyers and sellers are excruciating.

He explained that the PSP does not provide a specific plan for protecting the low-income consumers, which forms majority of the people in the country Kofi Asamoah pointed out that the lease on the contract does not appear to be taking on much risk, even though the condition of entering into the lease arrangement states that the lease must provide $70 million in investment capital over 10 years, and added that available documents suggest that the lease will be paid a specified return on investment as well as compensation for the depreciated value of the investment.

According to him, the fact-finding mission's report available on the role of the IMF, World Bank and other donors cites a long succession of IMF and World bank loans to the government of Ghana which contain conditions requiring increased cost recovery, automatic tariff adjustment mechanism and increased private sector participation in the water sector, which in a way will affect the people in the country.

Asamoah pointed out that the PURC's implementation of a plan for full cost recovery and automatic tariff adjustment mechanism will be a condition for the completion of the IMF's fifth review of Ghana's poverty reduction and growth facility loan which may undermine the role of the PURC as an independent regulatory body.

He declared that the preparation for the PSP was part of 10-year water sector reform process that has unbundled rural and urban water and has separated sanitation services from water delivery and explained that if PSP proposal is implemented, this will result in the loss of a significant source of cross-subsidies by removing the profitable sector of the water from the public domain.

He urged the government to revamp the water sector and stop the PSP programme since water is an aspect of the international treaties of which the government of Ghana is part.

According to Asamoah, it was a wrong notion for the government to link efficiency with the private sector because majority of the private sector aims at making profit rather than thinking of efficiency.

He said the PSP system will subject Ghanaians to international arbitration and appealed to the civil society to stand against the privatization of water.