The Ghana Water Company made a total loss of over ?1.503 trillion through lapses in its operations and interests on foreign loans it contracted between 1995 and 2001.

As a result, it is in dire straits and the management will be taking stringent measures to save it from collapse, J.K. Yankey, Chief Manager of the company in charge of finance, told the ?Times? on Thursday, 22nd April, 2004. Mr Yankey said about 50 per cent of water produced by the company was unaccounted for.

?This was a major source of loss to the company and the losses kept increasing steadily over the period.?

Giving figures to support his statement, Mr Yankey said GWCL lost ?35.8 billion in 1995; ?36.2 billion in 1996; ?59.9 billion in 1997; ?45 billion in 1998; ?97.6 billion in 1999; ?668 billion in 2000 and ?462 billion in 2001.

Currently, he said, the company was saddled with a huge debt and continued to record losses each passing year. Mr Yankey was speaking after the opening of a two-day seminar for district managers and commercials officers of the company in the northern sector of the country. Delivering a paper on ?The Financial Status of the GWCL,? he said the company was going through its worst time and every effort was needed to salvage it. He expressed the hope that the staff and the consuming public would help ?in every way possible to save the company from its current problems.?

The acting Managing Director of the Company, Mr S.G.O. Lamptey, in his opening address, said management was fed up and would not tolerate any more lapses in the company. ?All long, it is management that has borne the brunt of your inaction. In fact, we have been made to look very bad in the eyes of the public, our employers and other stakeholders, always have to go from one radio station to the other making media appearances to defend your actions and inactions. ?I hope no one wants to see the bad side of management. We simply have to wake up?, he warned the staff.

He said management expected them as supervisors and managers to ensure that their subordinates did the right thing. He gave a catalogue of the various malpractices in the operations of the company and expressed surprise that those activities were perpetrated by either staff of GWCL or in collusion with other.