The indebtedness of water consumers to the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has reached GHC846 million.

Minister of Water Resources, Joseph Kofi Adda, who revealed this said 58 per cent of the debt is owed by Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies while the rest is by domestic customers of the company.

“The GWCL is owed to the tune of GHc 846,449,169.00; 42% by domestic customers and 58% by MMDAs,” Mr Adda said at the launch of an electronic billing system by the GWC in Accra Tuesday.

Under the e-billing system, customers of GWCL will receive their waters bills via SMS and emails and also have the convenience to pay same using mobile money system. They can also pay their bills through existing GWCL payment points, visa or master card, and through banks, among others.

Payments made will reflect instantly and customers would receive an SMS or email notification. Also, the system will cut the number of 28 days of meter reading to one, and enable customers to even make daily payments of their water bills.

The Minister said of the over 600,000 customers of the GWCL, 80% are domestic customers but only 70% of those customers pay their water bills regularly. Mr. Kofi Adda thus challenged the GWCL “to leverage on this new technology to enable you collect all arrears from customers.

“The ultimate beneficiaries are Ghanaians and as a result, I will advise the customers of GWCL not to connive, neither should they condone corruption with our field staff. Together, we can curb corruption in our society”, he appealed.

Managing Director of GWCL, Dr. Clifford Briamah, revealed that “by the end of this year, we shall start the deployment of smart meters that will allow meters to be read without any entry into customers’ premises.

“By January 2018, we shall completely phase out paper bills and receipts”, the MD added.