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Madam Cecilia Abena Dapaah, the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources has applauded the Ghana Water Company Limited for using its internally generated fund (IGF) to extend water supply to the rural areas.
She said: “We have to commend Ghana Water for doing that with their IGF because we need to support the poor and the vulnerable; it is a whole concept and vision of government to make sure everybody accesses good portable water.”
Madam Dapaah gave the commendation when she hosted a delegation led by the Sierra Leonean Minister of Water Resources, Mr Philip Karimu Lansana who are in the country to gather information on Ghana’s water system and projects.
This is to help them to enhance their water supply in Sierra Leone.
Madam Dapaah said Ghana has a policy where Ghana Water produces the bulk water and then the Community Water and Sanitation Agency takes over and pipes the water to the rural areas as part of their mandate.
The Minister said the supply of potable water had helped to prevent outbreak of cholera and dysentery.
She stated that the problem that Ghana faced was the mining in water bodies, which she described as dangerous and evil, and that the government had declared war on that and hoped the perpetrators would cease from doing that.
“Why should we borrow money to build water systems and the raw intake is contaminated, which creates a lot of problems. When did we start mining in water bodies? It is a bad habit. It is time we all join forces to fight the menace,” she said.
On what informed the merging of sanitation and water, Madam Dapaah said: “If I could read my boss’s (President’s) mind, water goes with sanitation, which is cleanliness … you cannot practise effective sanitation without water. So for me is the best to add sanitation and water.”
Touching on open defecation, the Minister said Ghana was doing well in eliminating open defecation, which was previously at 13 per cent, it moved to 36 per cent and now it was at 56 per cent.
“Within three years we have been able to build 40,000 toilets in Accra alone and 250 institutional toilets because there are schools which were built 50 years ago and their toilets might have been dilapidated by now. So all these projects fill the gap,” she stated.
Madam Dapaah expressed gratitude to the Sierra Leonean Minister of Water Resource and the delegation for their courtesy call and wished them deliberations with water engineers in the country.
Mr Philip Karimu Lansana in an interview said they have been engaging with donor and other partners to work together to solve water supply in the entire Sierra Leone and through that the Hungarian Government introduced them to some Hungarian private sector wastewater technology company, PurecoKft, in Ghana.
“Ghana is close to us we want to see what the company is doing in Ghana and that is why we are here with our engineers and project managers to see the work they are doing here,” he said, adding that; “We will be looking at the technology they are using and how appropriate it is to our condition.”
He said: “We will also look at value for money. If the technology can easily be operated and maintained. These are some of the things we would be looking at.”
Mr Lansana said Sierra Leone water challenges were like Ghana and they would be working together in exchanging ideas to find solutions to the problems.
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