The Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) of Ghana has described as inaccurate the Auditor-General’s reports that funds granted for free water during the COVID-19 pandemic were misappropriated.

During the height of the novel dreaded coronavirus disease, the government gave free water from April to December 2020 to cushion Ghanaians.

To settle the cost of water for 2020 and 2021, some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and private water providers were paid GH22,819,862.42.

In his Covid-19 report, the Auditor-General raised concerns about the payment of GH37,609,791.71 as the cost of free water supplied by NGOs and private water providers.

The aforementioned payment leaves an amount of 14,789,929.29 to be cleared.

In response to the A-G report, the CWSA emphasised that the agency had exercised due diligence in their approach to determining payments to their various providers.

“Based on the auditor’s report, CWSA has not been implicated in any way and due diligence was observed prior to the implementation of the President’s directive. This was in the form of the Chief Executive’s directive for the implementation of the directive,” CWSA said in a statement.

Furthermore, the CWSA said its Chief Executive has shown his commitment to due process and did not yield to pressure from service providers to pay for unvalidated claims.

The statement added, “he maintained the agency’s stance on validating all submitted data and claim to service providers.”