WATER SUPPLY TO INCREASE BY 2015 (BACK PAGE, MARCH 20, 2010)

THE Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing has drawn up a strategic investment plan for water projects to ensure that the country achieves the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of increasing access to water supply.
This means that by 2015 the coverage of water supply to predominantly poor areas of the population, which is currently 58 per cent in urban areas, would be increased to 80 per cent.
The implementation of the plan is expected to cost the Ghanaian taxpayer $850 million.
The Director of the Project Management Unit of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Mr Daniel Bampoh, who announced the plan at a multi-sectoral stakeholders dialogue in Accra, said under the plan, 26 water supply systems throughout the country had been selected for rehabilitation.
He said apart from the strategic plan, the ministry had adopted a short-term plan to construct a desalination plant at Teshie to purify sea water and supply it to Nungua, Sakumono, Tema, Teshie and surrounding areas.
Mr Bampoh said the plant, when operational, could supply about four million gallons of water daily for industrial activities in Tema, as well as for domestic consumption.
He expressed concern over the fact that quarry activities around the Barekese Water Treatment Plant in Kumasi and Weija in Accra could threaten water supply to the two major cities and called for urgent action to stop quarry operations which sometimes shook the Barekese Dam.
The Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Alban Bagbin, who delivered the keynote address, said the ministry, in collaboration with the development partners and civil society organisations, was implementing a sector- wide approach (SWAP) to provide integrated water and sanitation services in the country.
He said he was leading a campaign to change mind sets to appreciate that water was not only a strategic resource that gave life but also served as a catalyst for development and, therefore, had to be at the centre of all development plans.
He said even though the country was well endowed with water resources, there was the need to guide against complacency, since a water crisis had started looming, a situation which called for prompt action.