The Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the US government’s development finance institution, has approved $150 million in political risk insurance to support the rehabilitation of nearly half the municipal water purification systems in Ghana.
“The OPIC insurance will cover the Ghana National Water Infrastructure Modernization Project investment. Belstar Capital Ltd, a US company, and Deutsche Bank arranged the $150 million in debt financing,” said the Corporation in a statement March 29, 2012.
According to the Corporation, the International Business and Trade LLC, a Florida-based company, will supply and install the equipment used to rehabilitate 38 of 82 existing municipal water purification systems, impacting all ten of Ghana’s administrative regions.
It also believes that this “investment is central to Ghana’s National Water Policy, which aims to increase the availability of clean water from 61% to 85% of the population by 2015” and “will also help reduce waste by increasing the efficiency of the country’s water treatment plants from 77% utilization to 100%.”
By Ekow Quandzie