Senior journalists being briefed about the operations of the Lavender Hill Faecal Treatment Plant
Residents in Ghana’s capital, Accra, risk experiencing sanitation crisis in their homes and offices as management of the Mudor Treatment Plant threatens to shutdown the Plant due to funding challenges.
After three years of self-financing, the operations of the Plant, belonging to the Jospong Group of Companies, has threatened to close down the plant in the event that the Ghanaian Government fails to sign a contract with the company, to ensure that some financial commitment is made by the State towards the running of the plant.
The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development is said to be the State institution required to enter into a contract with Mudor.
The management of the plant had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the State before the commencement of operations and have had to be hoping for the past three years to have a contract signed.
Mudor Treatment Plant
The Mudor Treatment Plant was launched in 2017 and provides liquid waste treatment services to several homes in Accra.
It has a capacity of about 18,000 cubic feet and is believed to be the largest of its kind in Accra operating the defunt sewerage system.
It remains unclear how much funding amount the company is seeking from the State or Government but Business Development and Communication Manager of Sewerage Systems Ghana Limited, a subsidiary of Jospong Group, Lola Asiseh Ashitey, says the Plant would be shutdown if negotiations with Government for the contract do not yield positive results.
She served the notice as she addressed senior journalists during a site tour to Mudor, the Lavender Hill Faecal Treatment Plant, the Accra Waste Recycling Plant, Zoompak, on Saturday, October 5, 2019.
According to Ms. Asiseh Ashitey, the consequences of the shutdown, would be among other things, pipes going back into homes and leading to faeces entering homes.
Areas that have sewer networks will be affected as water will not flow, she revealed.
The pipes will go back into the systems and people will have faeces in their homes, she stressed.
Work is going on and we should be paid for the works that we do.
Asked about the timeline for the closure of the Plant, she retorted “right now we are putting our all into it, Our last that we have into running the Plant, just when we are exhausted everything in all, we will be left with no other option than to shutdown the Plant.”
She indicated that the company has notified its stakeholders about the impending closure.
“We have to treat our wastes and treatment comes with payment,” she charged.
BY Melvin Tarlue