A Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Technical Specialist at World Vision Ghana, Yaw Attah Arhin, is urging the government to prioritize measures for providing clean and safe drinking water in rural areas of the country.
While it’s worth noting that 1.4 million urban households in Ghana lacked water on their premises in 2021, as reported by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Mr. Attah Arhin emphasized the need for the government to address the water situation in rural areas.
Speaking to Citi News, Mr. Attah Arhin underscored that the government should allocate resources to agencies tasked with delivering safe drinking water to rural areas.
“The rural areas need more access to sustainable safe drinking water. The Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) is the agency mandated to deliver safe drinking water in rural and small towns. Unfortunately, it appears that it has continuously been starved of resources.
Unlike urban water, which has the muscle and can go for these grants and loans, the rural sub-sector doesn’t have the liberty, and therefore, I think that the government should resource the CWSA with a lot more resources to be able to provide adequate safe drinking water to the communities,” he suggested.
Mr. Attah Arhin also noted that persons within communities affected by the Akosombo Dam Spillage must be sensitized not to drink the contaminated water.
“Immediately, what we need to do is to prevent people from relying on this water. And that is where we will need a very good behavior change campaign. We need to sensitize the communities that the water sources available are so heavily polluted and contaminated that you don’t have to rely on them. Going forward, what we need to do is, when the water recedes, we need to do a lot of disinfection, we need to do redevelopment of water facilities,” The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Technical Specialist at World Vision Ghana said.
