Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority closed 44 food manufacturing facilities in the Ga East and Ga West municipalities on July 22, part of a two-week enforcement drive that has now shut 59 sites nationwide. Most were unlicensed sachet water producers and cold stores operating without the required registration.
Inspectors found some producers using untreated, algae-contaminated water, with most facilities lacking ultraviolet sterilisation systems entirely. Among the closures was Virgen Natural Mineral Water in Ashongman, shut down for operating without a licence.
The FDA’s Head of Communications, Rhoda Ewurabena Appiah, told reporters, “We are not anti-business,” adding that the authority will not trade public health for the survival of non-compliant operators. She urged manufacturers to register or renew licences through the FDA’s online platform.
The enforcement sits inside a wider water-safety problem. UNICEF has found that seventy-six per cent of Ghanaian households are at risk of drinking water contaminated with faecal matter, contamination the agency traces to handling, storage and transport failures across the water chain rather than production alone.
The registration gap is not new. A 2023 investigation by Fourth Estate found that 142 of 300 sachet water brands sampled across Accra markets were not registered with the FDA, a finding that triggered a string of subsequent closures, including sachet producer Samdoe Enterprise.
“We are not anti-business.” — Rhoda Ewurabena Appiah, FDA Head of Communications
For licensed producers, the unresolved cost sits in the market itself. Registration, testing and UV treatment carry real overhead, and every unregistered rival selling look-alike sachets at a lower price erodes the margin compliance is meant to protect, the same dynamic driving enforcement against unlicensed water sachets in Senegal and against unregistered small-format alcohol in Nigeria.
Whether this round holds past the dry season, when sachet demand and informal street sales both peak, will decide if Wednesday’s closures mark a lasting shift or another temporary dent in Ghana’s unlicensed water trade.
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