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The Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing has directed all public institutions to, as matter of urgency, pay their water bills from their budgetary allocations.

It further asked the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to deduct from source, bills pertaining to staff bungalows and commercial entities, including those under construction on the various premises of such institutions.

“These institutions should collaborate with the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to identify and bill appropriately all the premises of such MDAs across the country,” it said.

The directives were contained in a communiqué issued in Accra after the ministry held a crucial meeting with heads of public institutions and the management of the GWCL. The meeting was to find solution to the impasse arising out of the non-payment of water bills by such agencies.

Stakeholders’ meeting
The meeting was under the chairmanship of the Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Samson Ahi.

It also resolved at the end of the meeting that the directive by the government to the GWCL not to disconnect institutions that provided essential services did not imply that such institutions were exempted from the payment of water bills.

“The parties shall continue to meet to finalise issues, but in the interim, all parties are expected to comply with the agreement reached,” the communiqué said.

Background 
Over the years, the government had been paying utility bills for MDAs or MMDAs under a system called Government Bulk Payment System (GBPS). 

Under that arrangement, the utility providers only had to compute the consumptions of those agencies and forward the bills to the Ministry of Finance for onward payment. 

In June 2013, the government took the decision to discontinue the system and let the agencies pay directly from their budgetary allocations effective January last year.

In view of that, the GWCL in recent times has had to disconnect some of these public institutions for non-payment of water bills following the directive from the government.