ALUTA – STRUGGLES IN THE BOREHOLE FRATERNITY

Water they say is life and as true as it may sound is almost becoming a huge problem for many to access even in the urban cities of Accra. In the remote Areas of Ghana, the story is so bad that in as much the government and many foreign organizations and stakeholders are doing all that they can to help the situation in Africa, especially in Ghana, The ordinary people; the common man has to take their fate into their own hand to find every possible means to provide and access clean and portable water by many mean and one of which is the drilling and construction of borehole to mitigate the problem. If all attempts fail, them the popular saying “Water is Life” becomes just another cliché and this means they cannot access life.

In recent times, global economy has been shaken by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and one of the direct impacts is the rise in fuel prices. In Ghana specifically many other factors coupling with the rise in fuel price, the falling of the cedi against the dollar and many more has brought economic hardship upon the common Ghanaian.

Despite the fact that prices of everything has been affected by the recent fuel price hikes, It seems as though some individuals and groups are over-milking the situation by taking pricing into their own hands. One of such people are the Indian Rig owners in the Borehole fraternity.

On Sunday, 20th March 2022, a group of contractors under the Ghana Borehole Drillers Association decided to stand up and unite to oppose the recent indiscriminate price increment by their service providers (The Indian Rig Owners in Ghana). In meetings held across the country mainly in Accra, Kumasi and Hohoe, they shared some of their grievance which has caught the attention of many including the media especially GTV and Angel TV.

The agitations amongst the borehole fraternity have heightened and many individuals have threatened to take bitter actions against these Indian Rig owners. In Kumasi, Borehole contractors have decided to go on strike for at least one week until their grievances have been heard. The Drillers association in Accra has also enforced a one week sit down strike and has warned their members not to patronize the Indian Rigs for the next 7 days until the matter has been resolved. A letter had been written and copies sent to all the Indian Rig owners to come to terms.

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Meanwhile the Association is calling on the Minister for Works and Housing and Water Resource Commission to come to their aid in controlling and regulating their activities especially the Rig owners.

In a private interview with one of the members who wishes to remain unnamed, He said:

“The Indians used to increase price anyhow even when we were not in any financial crisis.

In recent times (within two weeks) they have increased prices two times. Three days ago, they went on strike (17th March – 20th March) demanding for another increase which was about twice what they already charged.

They (Indian Rig owners) during their strike had a meeting and agreed to again slap us with a new price increase of additional GHs1500 on any amount they used to charge us depending on different locations.

The companies that met and decided to milk us are: SVL, SV-DRILLING TECH, MTL, OCEAN, SS DRILLING, SRI HARSHA, STAR DRILLING, CNT, LAVEN, UNIQUE, RR DRILLING, RAINBOW DRILLING, and BLUE DRILL TECH.
Their meetings and decisions were not in consultation with any other stakeholders (Agents, Contractors, Consultants, or any regulatory body).

What is more disheartening is that their percentage increase does not even commensurate with the current fuel increases. They just quote any huge figure.

It’s not only Rig rental fees that are going up; PVC Pipes too has seen it’s first share of this insane and artificial price hikes. These increments are so outrageous and they don’t consider the ordinary Ghanaian. For example, If we used to charge GHs10,000 minimum for a Borehole depending on the location, now we will be forced to charge up to about GHs15,000 to GHs20,000 and it’s the ordinary Ghanaian who suffers because we will be forced to push all these crazy increments to the final consumer.

Sometimes we blame the government but as we can see clearly, though things are hard, these Vendors and retailers are over-milking the situation. What pains us most is that these Indians are overly taking advantage of the Ghanaians.

Most of these Indian Rig owners do not even have banks accounts in Ghana.

They do not accept Bank Cheques.

They do not pay taxes.

They don’t even buy parts and accessories from the Ghanaian market even if they are available. They import almost everything from India whereas they can buy them from the Ghanaian market.

They milk us all these money, buy dollars and send to their country through escrow.

They don’t even pay the Ghanaian labourers well. Can you image they pay the Ghanaian labourer GHs40 and less a day.

They don’t pay their SSNIT neither do they have any insurance packages for the Ghanaian labourer they employ. If your hand get cut off or broken in the process of work, they leave you alone and go for the next labourer available.

They treat the Ghanaian labourer like slaves in their own country.

For now, our biggest issue and problem is the indiscriminate price increases which are not regulated. They just decide anytime and they execute price increase. We’ve been silent for too long and this time we are standing up for our County. They can’t decide how hard or difficult our lives should be.” If our country Ghana will not benefit from their business here, At least they should not add up to our difficulty in our own country. If they are not careful in dealing with us, what happened in Nigeria will happen here in Ghana” – Anonymous