GWCL worker drowns after maintaining Ho pipeline

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 Christopher Somey, 28, a staff of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in Ho got drowned after taking a dip into the Tsawoe River at Akrofo Xeviwofe in the Ho West District of the Volta Region.

It was after he had maintained the main pipeline feeding the Ho Municipality.

Mr Tsatsu Seshie, Regional Distribution Manager of the Company who confirmed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the incident occurred at about 1000 hours on Tuesday, when the deceased and two other staff members   sent to work on the broken pipeline “found their way into the river to have fun”.

Mr Tsatsu said the deceased “failed to return after some minutes and a search was quickly organised and Somey was retrieved dead”.

He said the police was called to the scene and conveyed the body to Ho Teaching Hospital mortuary for preservation and autopsy while investigations into the incident continued.

Mr Manfred Nuku-Dei, a former Assembly Member of the area who was an eyewitness told GNA that the bridge under which the incident happened was constructed in the 1940s and had pillars giving way.

He said portions of the bridge had caved in and probably had broken the 20-inch pipeline which was fixed along it.

Mr Nuku-Dei said the GWCL’s move to now lay the pipe on the bridge, would further weaken the structure and called for its reconstruction.

“The bridge does not need any maintenance. It must be reconstructed. Disaster looms if the bridge is not reconstructed”, he lamented.

Mr Nuku-Dei who is also a former Regional Administrative Officer of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) said “the road is very busy. You can count over 2000 vehicles in ten hours. This can affect the bridge and the pipeline”, he stated.

The GWCL is working round the clock to restore water supply to the Municipality and its environs to end close to a week of acute water shortage.

The Company earlier told GNA that the concrete joint of the transmission line collapsed with treated water gushing into a stream in the farming community, and that the situation was making it impossible to distribute water from the main source at Kpeve to the Ho township and its surroundings.

The Company was compelled to shut supply to control wastage, and experts from Accra were expected to fix the problem.

GNA observed residents and students trekking long distances with containers and gallons in search of water from streams and wells.

GNA